


Lost And Found

by Not_a_Mastermind



Series: Finder Series [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Psychic Abilities, Slow Build, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-06-27 17:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_a_Mastermind/pseuds/Not_a_Mastermind
Summary: After Jensen is struck by lightning he finds himself with the power to find anyone. At first he's not sure what to do with this new power besides pass on what he knows. But after a run in with the FBI he finds himself caught up in the sights of a secret group who are not so happy to share his power so freely. With his crush Jared helping him out of one jam and into another he's not sure if anyone should benefit from his powers or if anyone should even have them in the first place. After all, what's missing should not always be found.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my story for the 2018 Big Bang Challange! It is complete but I will be posting chapter by chapter since my computer time is limited and I haven't posted on AO3 for a while and want to get it right.
> 
> Authors note: I want to give a huge shout out and heartfelt thank you to thruterryseyes for her awesome artwork! Find it here https://thruterryseyes.livejournal.com/54185.html She went above and beyond my wildest dreams! Also a huge round of applause for her also being my beta/editor. She makes me look good people, seriously she is amazing!
> 
> This work is Inspired by the book When Lightning Strikes.
> 
> There will be a sequel for next years Big Bang! I know it's a ways off but I am writing already.
> 
> Please feel free to comment and tell me how I did.

**Lost And Found**

 

 

**Part 1**

 

 

Have you ever seen those shows like The Locator or Long Lost Family on Lifetime or TLC or other sappy network television?

No?

Well, the simple break-down is, on these shows, people, your average Joe, are trying to find their adoptive parents or long lost relatives who have been swept under the family secret or scandal rug. They are hosted and run by a person or persons, who, with modern technology (thank you Ancestory.com and public city records) and some old fashion gumshoe pavement beating, usually done by a close knit team or network-funded stable of employees to find out all those dirty secrets or previously sealed documents about your missing quarry. They then contact these previously missing people and spill the beans of the secret/scandal or dump the lost child/relative on them. If the missing person is receptive to this ambush attack they, the hosts and show producers, film an almost always tearful reunion.

Why am I talking to you about this? Well, it’s because I am one of those people finders, only I don’t use all that fancy technology and I don’t travel around pounding the pavement for the ‘dirt’ or the ‘truth’. And I don’t film any reunion that I help set up because I learned very early on in my…calling…that things don’t always go as planned because not everything is as it seems in missing person’s cases. Some of the missing don’t want to be found and for good reason and some of the missing, well they aren’t found in a state for a happy, living reunion. In this I am almost one of a kind because those mopes who run TV shows can’t find the dead half of the time. Those they find dead are the good kind of dead with a proper burial and mourners and all that jazz. I find the dead that certain people don’t want found or didn’t expect to be found, i.e.. murdered, if you didn’t catch my drift. And lastly, the way I set up these reunions after I find the missing, and finding them isn’t exactly an easy thing to explain.

Is this getting confusing? Because I think I’m not doing that great of a job explaining from the way your eyes are crossing.

How about I start at the beginning? Well not the  _beginning_ , beginning, that’s boring and would take too long. I’ll start at the beginning or right before the beginning of my life as a finder.

It was spring of my junior year and I had just turned seventeen a month and a half ago. For my birthday I wanted my driver’s license but I had detention all week (which my parents didn’t know about) and the weekends are reserved for working in my parent’s restaurant. It’s nothing too fancy but we keep busy. We have to stay busy, as everything we own and are as a family, is tied up in the place. It’s also run by my family almost exclusively which cuts down on the cost since me and my siblings earn peanuts in wages. But again, we can’t really afford it otherwise. Thus I would catch a ride everyday with my best friend since kindergarten, Christian, call me Chris or else Kane. That was if he wasn’t in detention himself and his car privileges revoked or he had to get home to do chores around the family farm. Chris’s car or truck to be specific was an old beat up hand-me-down Chevy that had probably been new when his grandfather was a teenager. It was his car that got us in trouble on the day my life changed forever and I became a finder, (although I wouldn’t know about that bit for a while yet.)

It was lunch time and some of the football players were talking loudly about the star quarterback’s new car. Jake Abel’s parents were lawyers and had just bought him a convertible. This new toy just had to be shown off and tested to see its limits. Jake had driven it all over town and out into some of the back roads of the farmlands just outside the richer city limits. He had thus almost been late for school and when he parked in the dismal bit of concrete the school called its student lot, the only slot left was next to Chris’s truck. We weren’t far away from Jake and his gang of fellow players when they began to complain even louder, they must have known Chris was close by, about the piece of shit eye sore and total pile of scrap metal junk that was parked next to his fancy new car.

Chris’s truck is no pile of junk, it’s his pride and joy and he keeps it running and looking like it’s only a few years out of style. Chris will take a lot of ribbing about his looks, his manners, his band and, on occasion, his home, but he won’t stand for anyone making fun of his family, his friends, and his truck. So after we had paid for our lunches, we were at the register when Jake had started in on his bullying, we headed towards our usual table…taking the long way around past Jake and his buddies.

When we were passing them, Chris without even turning his head or giving away any tells with his body said, “Hey, Jake”.

When Jake looked at him, a sneer on his lips, it was promptly wiped off his face, almost along with his nose, which slid sideways after it gave off a cracking sound, blood gushing from it following the tray that had sideswiped it.

“Try this shit!” Chris yelled.

Jake screamed and fell backwards onto a table full of lunch trays as students scattered out of the way. The table collapsed, eliciting another scream from Jake and more trays flying. Jake’s buddies were stunned into statues for a few seconds after Jake fell but the first one to come around charged towards Chris.

Without really thinking, I swung my tray at his face to save my friend who was busy telling Jake where he could stick his new car. He saw it coming and tried to duck, and for a second, I thought I was going to miss. I was half right. The tray missed his face but hit him in the neck causing him to let out a gargling sound and clutch his neck, falling over. With Jake and one other football players down, the rest of the team, whether they worshiped Jake or not were going to come to his and their teammate’s defense. Hoisting my tray up again, but poised to run should I need to, I was ready for the fight. It never happened.

“What the hell do you two think you are doing?” A harsh voice boomed from behind me as a giant, meaty hand grabbed my shoulder close to the base of my neck and pressure was applied. It was Coach Fredric Lehne and he was pissed. He had been behind us in the lunch line and he saw everything that happened. However, he was likely to forget any part his players had in this confrontation when he turned us in to the principal. He always looked the other way for his players no matter how bad their behavior or actions. A bit more pressure and I was forced to turn around and as I did I saw he had Chris in a similar hold.

“Boy’s, get Jake and Avery to the nurse,” he talked over his shoulder at his team as he pushed us toward the principal’s office. Chris and I didn’t fight him and I set my tray on a table on the way out of the cafeteria. Best not to have the weapon in hand when defending one’s self to the higher authority. When we arrived at the front office we caught a break, the principal Kim Manners was out. Instead of expulsion, which would likely be on the table for repeated bad behavior and the fact that we already had detention for the week we were to be sentenced by our guidance counselors who were in residence to see us.

Chris was shoved into his counselor’s office with Lehne shouting about him being a menace to society and to just send him to boot camp before he got any worse.

I was then marched into my counselor’s office a few doors down. Jeffery Dean Morgan known to his charges as JD was seated at his desk about to bite into a giant slice of pizza. He blinked a few times in confusion before putting his pizza down as Lehne started in on my crime.

It was unsurprising that I was painted the villain who had attacked, unprovoked, one of his precious players who might be injured enough to have to go to the hospital and miss a game or two. I had not hit him hard enough for that as much as I wished I had in that moment. I’m loath to admit that I’m not as strong as I want to be or could be with my arm muscles. My leg muscles are a bit above average but my arms are a bit below. I had blocked out most of Coach Lehne’s tirade when the word suspension caught my attention.

“It’s clear to see that none of your discipline tactics have worked. He’s had enough detention that it must seem like vacation. I demand you suspend him for this incident.”

“Mr. Lehne,” JD never called him Coach, “Jensen is in fine shape but I don’t think that he hurt Avery that badly. But if you want I can file a report that Jensen, Avery’s previous tutor, got into a scuffle with him and should stay away from him. I’ll have to do some digging and ask witnesses about all the events leading up to and after to make sure that the official documents have all their I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”

At that, Coach Lehne sputtered and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling.

“Just take care of him and make sure he keeps away from my players.” With that Lehne stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

JD sighed and waved a hand at the squat but comfy chairs he had squeezed into his office. When I sat down my knees brushed JD’s desk so I drew then up under me like a kid might have. The smell of the pizza began to fill the office and my stomach rumbled. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast and my lunch was all over the floor of the cafeteria. JD sighed again, ripped the slice in two and handed me half.

It was a meat deluxe from the Pizza Hut just down the road. Our school is a closed campus and only the staff and seniors get to leave during lunch. There is a fence with a huge gate around the school to help with this. If you’re late, you can’t get in and you get in trouble. JD always seems to have pizza for lunch but none of it shows up on his lean frame. If I had to guess, I’d say JD had played some football or other sport in high school or college himself. We ate in silence for the few minutes it took to scarf down our half slices.

“So, I heard Mr. Lehne’s side of the story with my usual pound of salt, now you tell me what happened.” JD settled back in his chair and watched me. He was a very good judge of who was lying and just about how much. So I told him the truth. When I was done he was shaking his head slightly with an exasperated look on his face. I knew that I had disappointed him, and I didn’t generally like to do that if I could help it. JD had been very good to me since I came to Midland Texas High School my freshmen year. He was like an uncle, except that we didn’t do family gatherings. “Jensen we’ve talked about fighting how often now?”

“A lot.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But we haven’t in a few weeks,” I helpfully added.

“Try two weeks,” JD said as he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a rather fat folder after a moment of shuffling about. It was my folder and it was in his desk drawer instead of the filing cabinet behind his desk because I’m in his office so much.

“You’re a good kid and a great student but you have got to stop the bad habit of getting into fights. Especially with guys who are bigger then you are or one of these days you won’t be fast enough or lucky enough to get out of the line of fire. You need to find more friends besides Christian and his cousin, not that I’m telling you to abandon them. Are you going with Christian to his anger management classes?”

“Yes and it’s paying off, two weeks is good for me not to be here.” I smiled at JD. Chris, who I was defending in this latest fight, is twice or I’d even say three times more likely to end up in fights as me. But of course, Chris is stronger than I am (but I’m faster…and taller much to his dismay) and has his cousin Steve to back him up when I’m not around.

I, on the other hand, am all alone when I’m not with Chris. I’m considered tall to a majority of the population of the United States but here in Texas, in this small rural town, I’m average. Most sports around here are played by big kids, bigger than me and certainly more muscled and heavier. So someday, if I’m a little too slow or Chris isn’t around I’m going to get creamed. The fact that I have a bit of a temper doesn’t help me when I need to avoid situations where this could happen. Chris has to take mandatory anger management classes with his temper and history of fighting. I go with him at least twice a month (my parents think its book club and movie club).

“Just keep going and try to stay out of trouble, okay?” JD started writing in my file. “I’m not going to recommend suspension this time and with principal Manners gone for another day at least, I think you can get by with another week or two of detention. But if this keeps up and next time Manner’s is here, I might not be able to keep him from suspending you. Especially if he asks to see your file.” JD waved said file a little before he finished writing this newest incident and punishment.

“You can, of course, skip a detention or two as long as you tutor some of the students who need it. Just not any of the jocks for a while,” JD added quickly as if I’ll get any ideas about it. “Lunch is just about over so I suggest you go get your bag from wherever it might be and head straight to your next class.”

And that is all there is to say about the former half of my day.

When I left JD’s office, the door to Chris’s counselor, Judy, was still closed. From past experience and with how mad Coach Lehne was, he’d be in there for a while. I did what JD told me and found my bag, and Chris’s, under the table we usually ate at. Steve must have put them there after the fight when the jocks were too busy to pay attention, otherwise I might never have gotten it back. I took both bags and dropped Chris’s off in the office before going to history class.

The rest of my day passed quickly and by the time detention rolled around I was starving again. Chris wasn’t in detention and I guessed he was working some of his time off with community service since there was no way he was going to tutor struggling students. Not that Chris couldn’t do it, he was smarter than me, he just wasn’t all that interested in showing it. After detention I met Chris in front of the school for my usual ride home. Only Chris’s truck wasn’t there with him.

“Let’s get moving, Jen, it’s my turn to cook tonight and I forgot to buy bread” Chris had his backpack over one shoulder, arm up to hold the strap since the adjuster buckle was broken and in the other hand he had his guitar case.

“Chris, where’s the truck?” It was a very valid and important question considering I had gotten into trouble over it. Plus it had been gray and gloomy weather all day but a storm front had moved in during the last hour or so. Black ominous storm clouds were almost over our heads and there was a cold wind picking up. I did not want to walk with a spring storm about to break.

“Steve has it.” Chris kicked at a rock, sounding slightly angry. He wasn’t angry at Steve, he couldn’t ever be really mad at his cousin but he was mad about not having the truck. I didn’t ask why Steve had it. It was probably some kind of punishment from his dad for fighting. I don’t know how he got the news so fast unless Judy had called Mr. Kane. “Let’s get a move on. I want to beat the storm.”

Like that was going to happen. There was no way unless we traveled as fast as a runaway train we were going to beat this storm. Still, I started walking with Chris stepping into line next to me. We had just left the gateway when an engine revved and then slowed to a purr as a beautiful machine of a motorcycle pulled up alongside us. We didn’t slow and it kept pace as its rider turned to face us. There was no danger of the boy riding it crashing as the road was wide, flat and empty. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye before looking forward again.

“Hey, Jensen,” the boy said over the engine and the increasing wind, not greeting Chris. “Do you want a ride home?”

Oh boy, did I ever! But I was walking with Chris and he was giving the rider a nasty scowl I observed. “No, it’s okay, I’m walking with my friend.” Chris’s scowl lessened but only a fraction and I focused back on the road feeling a bit tense. I didn’t want Chris to get in another fight, especially with this boy.

“You sure? It’s going to start raining any minute,” the boy went on, ignoring Chris completely.

“He said he was walking with me and we got band stuff to discuss, so jet off” Chris answered before I could.

“Sorry, but no, thanks,” I said after turning my head so I could look at him and give him a quick tight smile.

“Sure thing,” the boy replied with a smile all his own before dropping back a bit, revving the engine and taking off at a clip, swerving around us in a wide birth.

I watched him go and wished that I could have accepted his offer of a ride, but Chris is my best friend and we stick together. It would have been a snub to have taken the ride and left Chris to walk home alone in the rain which had just started.

“Shit,” Chris said, speeding up like it will make a difference. “Who the hell was that guy, anyway?” Chris’s capacity to speed walk and talk doesn’t seem to be hampered by the wet hair that was falling into his face and sticking since he doesn’t have a free hand to brush it away.

“His name is Jared Padalecki. We have detention together.” And when I watched him in detention, I wish we had more classes in common. I had had the hots for him since that first day in detention when I had walked in late because I hadn’t known which room detention was in and he had smirked at me when the teacher chastised me. I learned his name first and his reputation second and the fact that most of it was probably a lie, third. Jared was a bad boy, but only on the outside, for appearances sake. We had never really had a conversation since we aren’t supposed to talk in detention unless absolutely necessary. But we had spoken a few words and greetings here and there in all that time.

“Padalecki! You do know who he is right? You might be considered mischievous, I might border on a menace but he’s a delinquent in the eyes of all the school and most town officials!” Chris sounded exasperated. Obviously he had heard and believed everything about Jared’s image and reputation.

“Relax, it’s not like we’re friends or anything,” I assured Chris wishing that we were, friends, I mean. “I see the guy in detention, we’ve spoke maybe twenty words to each other in like three years.”

“And he just happens to think it’s okay to offer you a ride home? He doesn’t even live anywhere near our side of town.” Our town is small, but it’s still divided into the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. Me and Chris are haves, but not rich, Jared is a not and poor, or at least that’s what everyone says. “Would you have taken the ride if I wasn’t here?” Chris asked. “Because that’s just asking for trouble. You may as well just tape a sign to your back saying rob me, beat me and leave me in a ditch somewhere.”

“Chris!” I hissed, surprised that he would think that of Jared. But then again, I guess most people would think that of him with what they known or don’t know. “No, I wouldn’t have gone with him.” Which was a lie.  I would have, just out of curiosity, also to possibly pump him for knowledge about himself.

Okay, so maybe I had a bit of a crush on him, so sue me, he was hot. Tall, taller than me, warm hazel eyes, soft looking brown hair and a killer smile.

“Good, ‘cause I’d hate to have to go to jail for murder if you went with him and he did something to you.”

I don’t doubt Chris’s statement, he’s that kind of best friend. A friend who had stopped short and I had to back track a few paces to be able to see and hear him since the rain was now coming down in sheets and the wind was now howling and thunder had begun rumbling like an oncoming freight train.

“We need to get out of this damn rain before we drown.” Chris adjusted his backpack so he could carry his guitar with both hands and jog instead of walk. But just as he was putting his bag back on, a hail stone hits me. Hard. I looked down to see that it was the size of a golf ball just as another one hits me.

“Shit, let’s go!” Chris cradled his guitar and starts off and I don’t need to be told twice in order to catch up with him. We didn’t make it very far before the rain was replaced entirely by hail.

“Over there!” Chris shouts over booming thunder and the sound of hail thudding on the ground like drum beats nudging me into the road. On the other side is the community park and sports fields. When we got closer I saw a small stand of metal bleachers by the baseball diamond. It was the only shelter until you reach the end of the long road and we could be pelted to death by hail before then.

I was stopped short of going under the bleachers and out of the beating hail by a flash of lightning. I may not be a genius but I do know that electricity and metal, wet metal at that, don’t mix. I didn’t see the lightning strike anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t close by.

“What are you doing? Get under cover!” Chris yelled at me from under the bleachers when he has picked a spot under a wider seating plank rather than a foot plank.

I debate whether I want to be beaten to death by hail, possibly struck by lightning or go under the wet metal bleachers and fry when lightning strikes it. In the end I opted for the lesser of the three evils and move in next to Chris. After all, what are the odds of lightning hitting the bleachers and us getting electrocuted? There are taller things close by such as the school not far behind us, the trees ringing the park, a water tower about a mile away (that doesn’t actually hold water anymore) or the flag pole at the entrance to the park’s parking lot. When I look around us the lightning is illuminating the dark landscape.

“We might be here for a while,” Chris said, setting his bag and guitar down. He squatted down and opened the bag to rummage through it. “I got a radio in here somewhere.” He slid his hand inside to grope at the bottom.

“A radio?” I sound as confused as I feel.

“Yeah, one of those cheap portable ones for weather, traffic and amber alert broadcasts and shit like that.” Chris must have found it because he smiled and pulled out a small black rectangle.

“Why do you have that?”  I was interested now. In all the time I have known Chris I hadn’t known about this.

“My dad gave it to me last year when we had that real bad snow storm. It’s so I can check the weather and come home to help out getting the farm battened down if things get serious.”

“Why do you need it now? We know we’re in the middle of a shit storm and it won’t be over for a while. Unless someone thinks about where we might be and comes to get us we’re stuck as you mentioned a minute ago.

“True, but it is tornado season.” Chris switched on the radio and the buzzing of a severe weather broadcast was merrily pulsing.

“Fuck,” is all I can say as I realize it’s true and that we might be royally screwed. It was a warm, if cloudy day, the winds are cold, there’s plenty of moisture, the land is pretty flat and we live in the part of Texas that sits firmly in tornado alley. I should have thought of it sooner. I sighed and leaned back against a pole in exasperation.

“Jensen, no!”

It was the last thing I heard before a deafening boom that seemed to shake the ground. Chris leaped to his feet, a horrified look on his face.

A split second later there was a blinding flash, I felt pain like never before, my body seized up and I felt nothing at all.

Then everything went black.

When I come to, I still hurt but not as bad as just before. Or apparently a long time before because I was no longer under the bleachers with Chris. I was in a bed which was hard and painful to my sore body. The lights, while bright, weren’t as bright as the flash that had blinded me. And the hushed sounds took a minute for me to register before I realized where I was.

A hospital.

No one was around to see me wake up except the machines that I was hooked up to and they ratted me out. A nurse came in and checked my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature before making sure my sight, hearing and speech were fine. As she did this she was joined by a doctor who asked all those ridiculous questions like, do you know who you are, how old you are, what day it is and so on. When I checked out okay but said I was in pain, the doctor doped me up and it was back to the land of the unconscious.

When I woke up a second time I didn’t feel bad. In fact I felt great. The nurse and doctor came back to see me and I learned that I had only been out for the night but it felt like I had rested for days. This I didn’t tell the doctor, but I did tell him I was fine and wanted to go home. They had observed me over night with nothing bad happening to me. I didn’t appear to be damaged by my experience, I just didn’t want to stay and take up much needed space that some other, more worthy patient, could be using.

Secretly, I was worried about the bill for a longer stay. As I mentioned, before my family wasn’t rich and they were waiting for me in the lounge instead of working. I got to see them when the nurse was done with every possible test she could run without extensive equipment and left. The doctor stayed and tried to persuade them to get me to stay but they sided with me. By lunchtime I was up on my feet, dressed in yesterday’s dirty cloths and on my way out the door with advice to take it easy for a week, come back for a checkup or if I started to feel anything other than like a normal, human boy. Seriously, the list was so long of things to look for that could go wrong, I thought it would be easier to list the things that wouldn’t or couldn’t go wrong with me. I also got a free pass to skip school, and thus detention for the remainder of the week. That I took.

Dad drove while Mom sat nearly backwards to watch me and repeatedly ask me if I was okay during the drive home. I love my parents and I understand that I gave them a bit of a scare. Hell, even I had been scared for a bit until I understood that I wasn’t going to die and there didn’t appear to be any permanent damage from being shocked with a jillion wats of electricity. I just wanted to go back to normal like nothing had happened. Instead, Mom was going to try and treat me like an invalid and that was gonna fail because I wasn’t going to stay in bed like a fragile piece of glass that might shatter at any moment.

My little sister Mackenzie, who everyone had called Mac since she was born, to the point that she didn’t believe it when her first grade teacher used her legal name would try to copy our mother. Dad and my older brother Josh would do their best to help me out by acting as if I was normal, at least to my face, I would catch the worried look in their eyes later that night when I went down to help bus the tables at the restaurant.

We did good business that night and for the few nights leading up to the weekend as people, my parents business associates, friends and family (mom’s family who ignore us generally called to ask about me and offer some assistance in the form of a loan for my hospital bills) came in to say how good it was that I wasn’t truly hurt from my accident, to hear my harrowing tale of survival and a few to scold me on putting myself in harm’s way, like I could have avoided being hit by lightning. Like I actually wanted that to happen. Even my hospital doctor stopped in to check on me since I would not go back to the hospital. I felt fine and other than the fact that I seemed to have gained a starburst shaped burn scar on my chest (to which I didn’t tell anyone but Chris) I was back to normal. It wasn’t until Saturday that I noticed that something wasn’t right with me after all.

For mom’s sanity and to finally get out from under her mother hen wing, I agreed to run her usual errands with her. If I wasn’t tired out, sore, bruised, or otherwise unwell, I could resume normal life. She put me to the test by making me push the heavy shopping cart at the bulk cash and carry store, making me memorize the at-home grocery list and find everything she asked for, run into stores to pay outstanding bills and exchange dirty linens for clean ones at the dry cleaners while she waited at the curb in the car.

The last stop was at the post office. Post offices in small towns are notorious for being slow. They have a full staff there in the building but only one or two people actually at the counter, and the slowest people at that. There was no way Mom could wait at the curb while I ran inside and she wouldn’t let me wait in the car in the lot when she went inside, so we went in together. We stood in line together too. At least for a few minutes until I got bored and started wondering around looking at everything from various envelopes, boxes, tubes and tape for sale, cards and postcards for loved ones to the message board with layers of papers at least two inches thick.

As I stood and scanned the notices and flyers on the top most layer, advertising garage sales, hire for yard work, babysitters available and the usual notices what to not ship in the mail a yellowed poster half covered in the corner caught my attention. It seemed to call out to me and the other papers around it blurred like they were far away and this paper came into sharp focus by contrast. It was a missing poster but instead of a missing pet it read missing children. I moved the other papers aside to see it in full. On the top, in big bold type was written **, ’Have you seen me, missing child.’**  Below this, on the left was what looked like a school photo. The kid was light-haired with freckles and a gap-toothed grin where a front tooth had fallen out. Next was the same kid only older, the hair a bit longer, the freckles almost faded to nothing and all his teeth. Below that one, it said age progression, under the first it gave the stats of the kid.

Riley Van Galt, age six, dark blonde hair, blue eyes, four foot three inches, weight exactly eight-five pounds, last seen in tan shorts, sandals, and a red Mickey Mouse shirt when he disappeared from the park a few counties over on July 2nd, 2012. He would be eleven now, see aged photo opposite. If anyone had any information about or had seen Riley to please call the center for missing and exploited children or the local police.

Studying the face of the little boy I blocked out the rest of the world around me. Something in me stirred and my heart fluttered for a moment before everything seemed to slow. It was like I was in a trance, or that feeling you might get from deep meditation, not that I meditate, I had tried it once and that was enough for me, but that is what it felt like. My breathing slowed, heart rate slowed, I’m sure if checked, my blood pressure would have slowed. The image of Riley filled my entire vision and I’m sure lodged deep in my brain. It felt like this went on forever but it was probably only a few seconds. A woman with a whole tribe of kids came into the office then and one of them bumped me and back to living I came. It was like surfacing from a deep dive. Sounds and light were loud and bright for a second or so, I took a deep breath (but not a gasp) and felt like a heavier gravity had come back from being light and buoyant. I moved away from the posters board and stayed by mom’s side till she was finished with the mail. We went home and I forgot about Riley and the poster and how strange I had felt.

At least until the morning.

When I woke up the first thought was that my whole body was tingling and not the good pleasant way of teenage boys. It was the way I had felt the morning after the night I got hit by lightning. Then the next thought I had was that Riley Van Galt was in Georgia.

That made me pause.

Who was Riley Van Galt?

He, I was certain it was a he, wasn’t a friend of mine. I tried to concentrate of why I would know this of him when the memory of the missing person’s poster materialized in my mind. Now I was completely confused. I’d never met Riley, I’d never heard anyone talk about him. I’d sure never been to Georgia, but I  _knew_  he was there, deep down in my bones I was absolutely certain. I wasn’t sure if this was some remnant of a very vivid dream, although why I would be dreaming about little Riley Van Galt I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to know, or I had fried some part of my brain after all with the lightning. Either way I pushed those thoughts, and Riley from my mind when Mom yelled that I was going to be late for my shift if I didn’t get up right this minute. Being late for a shift was a criminal offense in my family so I hopped to it.

At first the day went fine, business as usual now that my notoriety was cooling down but it didn’t last. Riley began slipping into my thoughts along with the fact that he was in Georgia. A little town called Rock Creek to be exact. By afternoon I was beginning to see him or his features in any little or preteen boy who came in. I could also picture him in front of a small duplex that was painted a garish yellow in that small town. I was convinced that I was going nuts by the end of my shift and hurried back home and to my room to have a little freak out. Plus, I had developed a slight headache that throbbed when I thought of Riley. My thought process went a little something like this…

I’ve lost my mind. I am going insane. I’m going to end up in some nut house.

Or prison because I am thinking of a little kid so much I might start talking about him and my obsession with a little boy is not going to look good for me. I am going to go to the nut house for insisting I know where a missing kid is when I have only seen his picture. My head hurts. Why is this happening to me? What am I going to do so I don’t end up in the nut house? Or prison? I have lost my mind!

Just out of curiosity I decided to look up Rock Creek, Georgia to see just how badly I was losing my mind.

It turned out from Google maps that a tiny part of me was sane. The town did exist. Next just for shits and giggles I used that nifty feature that lets you see satellite images of the area so detailed that I might as well have been cruising over the town in a hot air balloon. Whenever I came to a more urban-ish block of houses I went to street level to see if any of them were yellow duplexes. Almost two hours later and with what felt like sand blasted eyes from staring at the computer screen I found the building. I had found the town and the building but how was I going to find Riley? Why was I considering this? What could I possibly do with the information if the last bit was as true as what I had found so far? I could just picture again ending up in the loony bin.

_“Why yes, Mr. Police Officer, I know where Riley Van Galt is. Yes, he’s that kid who has been missing for years. No I never met him. I saw his picture on a missing poster. I just know where he is, because I just do, maybe I dreamed it. Yes, I am serious. You found him? Great! No, I didn’t have anything to do with his disappearance. No, I have no idea who the person(s) who took him is/are. My brain is fried from being struck by lightning so…oh, sure, I’ll just go with these nice people in white coats.”_

I wasn’t sure what to do. Well, it wasn’t like there was much I could do at the moment. I had wasted more time on freaking out and now it was time for dinner. The whole day gone, just like that, and I had spent most of it thinking or rather obsessing about a boy whose face I had seen on a poster. Tomorrow was Monday and back to school. Detention too.

I wonder what Jared Padalecki would think of me if he knew about my sinking into insanity. It turned out he thought I was an interesting date.

All Monday I had that low headache, but it was getting stronger as time went by. Aspirin didn’t help at all so I just had to suck it up and suffer. By the time detention rolled around I just wanted to black out into painless oblivion. I was not to be so lucky. However the prize at the end of the crap day wasn’t shit but a plan to solve at least part of the problem.

When I got to detention, my usual seat was taken. This hadn’t happened since the fall when I had staked out my usual middle aisle window seat from last year and some freshmen thought that they were entitled to it if they got there before I did. A little ‘talk’ after school with him, me and Chris solved the issue. However, today, some kid I had never paid attention to but knew was a junior sat in my seat. As I made my way toward him with what I thought was purpose and he ignored me, I was intercepted by a hand on my arm and a pull towards the back of the room. Before I could protest a voice that made my heart beat just a bit faster stopped me.

“Hey, come sit by me, I need a study buddy.” It was Jared and he was smiling at me like we were old friends. I nodded as he lead me to the desk next to the one he always took at the back of the room next to the window. He let me have his seat and sat next to me pulling out a note book that had been rolled up in his back pocket. He’d ruin his jeans that way and then the shape of his butt wouldn’t look so good.

Then I blushed as I considered my last thought. Jared didn’t seem to notice as he got busy writing in his note book holding it down and mostly flat with his huge hand. Jared had nice big hands that were calloused and I was sure a perfect mix of rough and soft in just the right places. I was drawn out of these thoughts before I could turn as red as a cooked lobster when Jared plopped the notebook on my desk. It rolled a bit and I had to hold it flat like he had in order to read it.

You may be asking yourself why we were passing notes, or a notebook in this case like little kids instead of talking like normal teenagers or adults. Well, detention is meant as a punishment, so to make sure we know that, there is no talking in detention unless you are tutoring someone. However, there are no rules against passing or sharing notes. At least I don’t know of any rule stating that it’s not allowed. Still I did glance at the front of the room when Miss. Pacon was sitting.

Miss Pacon was what old timers called an old maid. She never married, and rumor had it she’d never even had a boyfriend. In today’s freer world of thinking, at least in bigger towns than middle-of-nowhere Texas, she didn’t have a girlfriend either. She had grown old alone with no one around to see her do so but all the classes of students she taught. After decades of this she was close to retirement and getting more and more bitter about it. She could be a real stickler for rules when she wanted and make your time in her detention a real pain instead of a bore. Today she wasn’t paying the least bit attention to us so I fell into a conversation with Jared for the first time.

_What are you doing this afternoon?_

I had to blink a few times before what I was seeing registered. Jared was possibly asking me out on a date! Or at least I hoped he was.

 _Why?_  I wanted to be clear what was going to happen, and passed him back the note book.

He quickly wrote something and passed it back.  _I thought we might go for a ride._

For a brief moment I wondered if this would be just a ride or if there was a secret double meaning or hidden layer to this message. I was about to reply with a witty comment about that thought when another more interesting one popped into my head.  _How about tomorrow?_  I raised an eyebrow as I passed it back.

Jared stared at it for a moment and I thought he might not answer before he shrugged and wrote back.  _You going to try me out before some other hot date and compare us over the weekend?_

I gave him a dirty look and scribbled back a response hoping I wasn’t playing too hard to get. I wanted a ride on Jared’s motorcycle. I also wanted a favor from him.

_If you’re too busy I can find someone else with a ride._

I didn’t actually know anyone else with a motorcycle or anyone else interested in me. If Jared couldn’t help me I would be forced to beg Chris for his truck and I didn’t want to do that because he’d ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer yet. Also he wouldn’t like the place I wanted to take his beloved truck.

Jared’s response was so hastily written and sloppy it was hard to read but it made me smile.

_Hey tomorrow’s cool, after detention we can hit the open highway._

Now came the part about the favor and I hoped that he would follow my lead and stick with me just this last little bit. As long as we end up at ACES for dinner. Aces was a biker joint a few towns over the county line. I know Jared had been there before, it’s where all the serious bikers in the area hang out. But it isn’t the place that someone like me would normally frequent or that would welcome me with open arms. I knew of it because once a quarter, our family restaurant did a special on more expensive seafood and ACES was on the route to our fish supplier. My parents and Chris would freak if they knew I had wanted to go there.

But there was a working pay phone there. I had seen it and people using it from our trips past it.

I wanted to call the number on the poster for Riley. But I wasn’t stupid enough to call from home, or any of my families or Chris’s cell phone. Like-wise it wouldn’t be wise to call from any phone in town if I wanted to stay anonymous. Which I did very much in case I really was truly nuts.

Jared must have thought I was nuts at least for a minute. He studied the note as if it was written in a foreign language. I thought I had pushed him too hard after all. He had been offering me a quick joy ride, not to be introduced to his friends. But maybe he thought he could spin it as I was just some eye candy (I thought I ranked handsome enough for eye candy status if you asked me) to hang on his arm (or in this case off the back of his bike), all my opinion when he finally passed the note book back.

I practically ripped it out of his hand so I could read it.

_I’ll take you if I get a good night kiss._

_I think I could deal with that._

I struggled not to blush or have my hand shake as we exchanged the note book for the last time.

_Deal._

That night I gave my parents pause when I volunteered to take a stack of restaurant ad flyers and bills to the post office. If I wanted to call in what I knew about Riley I needed the right phone number to call. I wasn’t going to call the police in case I was wrong or they didn’t believe me and I didn’t think that the other number for whatever organization put out the posters would bother to trace the call, they got so many tips that never panned out it wouldn’t be worth it.

Or at least that was what I was counting on.

When I got to the post office it was closed, of course, but you could still go into the outer lobby to use the machine, mail slot or P.O. boxes. The message board with Riley’s missing poster was in the outer lobby. I took one of the ad flyers up to the board and held a bunch as I fake struggled to pin one up over where Riley’s poster was. When I went to drop everything else off where it should go I had Riley’s poster folded and slipped it into my pocket as I left. I don’t know why I was being so covert about my taking the thing but I just wanted as little about what I was going to do traced back to me, not that I thought anyone would try. As I crawled into bed my mind bounced back and forth between the call I’d make to set Riley free from whatever trouble he was in and my date with Jared. Because a motorcycle ride and dinner at a biker bar with a goodnight kiss at the end counted as a date in my book.

The next day, however, I almost canceled on Jared, not to mention school in general, as my head pounded and I understood what people with migraines complained about.

I knew more about Riley Van Galt now, like the address of his house, the phone number, since it apparently had a land line, that the backyard was always overgrown and filled with tennis balls which were bounced against the fence surrounding the yard. It was a good thing there wasn’t any tests because I probably would have started writing down those things I knew about Riley. Jared kept giving me looks during detention as we sat together again and I whispered “nervous excitement” as any excuse for what he thought I looked like. He just smiled and I tried to concentrate on looking and acting normal.

“You sure you’re up for this, Ackles?” Jared asked as he handed me a spare helmet before strapping on his own.

“Oh, yes.” I didn’t have to fake the excitement in my voice as I followed Jared’s lead and put on my helmet. With the motorcycle right in front of me and the immanent prospect of speeding (I like to go fast) down open highway while hanging on to a hot guy, the pain in my head was pushed a little to the side with the rush of adrenaline. I had lied to my parents and told them I’d be practicing music with Chris and Steve while telling Chris I would need to be studying somewhere quiet away from the possibility of getting roped into working an extra shift and asking him to cover for me if my parents called. He agreed reluctantly after I had promised to actually play a gig with them, but singing would not be guaranteed.

Jared got on and started up the engine which purred like perfection and I quickly got on behind him.

“Hold on tight,” he said as he released the brakes and we shot out of the parking lot. Jared’s abs under his shirt and jacket were solid under my hands and I considered copping a feel of his whole chest before we got out onto the main road. Jared went the speed limit within the city but as soon as we crossed the town line and the land turned flat without a hiding place for cops he hit the throttle.

I could have yelled with glee as we shot down open road and the thrill of getting my speed fix pushed my headache further away. Jared must have picked some older, lesser known or highway because there wasn’t a lot of traffic. We spent quite a bit of time just speeding along and by the time my headache started letting itself be known again with great force I felt Jared’s stomach rumble. I was a little hungry but me head prevented me from having a real apatite.

We stopped briefly for Jared to ask if I was ready for dinner and I agreed. I wanted to get the call to the center for missing and exploited children done and over with before my head got worse and I asked Jared to take me home. Or to a hospital if things got worse and I was suddenly reminded that this could be a very delayed symptom of something bad going wrong with my brain thanks to being electrocuted by lightning. I hardly payed attention to the last bit of the trip to ACES. We went inside and got a lot of looks (or I did anyway) until Jared put his arm around my shoulder and guided me up to the bar along the back wall.

He greeted the bartender by name, Chad, a guy who didn’t look older then we were. Chad passed me an old and greasy menu that had lots of things crossed out and new things hand written in along the border. Jared waited till I ordered, already knowing what he wanted before I told him I was going to go outside and try the pay phone just for kicks. Jared laughed but didn’t stop me as I went out, telling him to come get me when the food was ready.

Once outside and standing in front to the pay phone, I was unsure if I wanted to go through with my plan. I took the missing poster out of my jeans pocket and looked at Riley’s face. He looked so innocent and sweet in his school photo. I wondered what was happening to him now and if he actually looked like his aged photo in which he was presented as clean, healthy and happy. His parents must miss him, I know my parents would miss me if I went missing. That was what made my decision up for me. That Riley’s parents loved him and missed him and wanted him home. Taking several dollars’ worth of quarters out of my pocket, I picked up the receiver and fed the machine almost all the quarters. I didn’t think it would take that long to get the information out, (at least I hoped it wouldn’t) and any left-over ones would be returned to me. I dialed the number slowly to make sure I got it right even thought I was reading it off a piece of paper.

It rang three times before being picked up by a woman with a southern accent. “National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, this is Danneel. How can I help you?”

For a second I was tongue-tied but then I looked down at Riley’s smiling face and I could talk again. “Yes, I think I saw this kid from a missing poster. His name is Riley Van Galt,” I paused so she could take that down. “He was at this house in Rock Creek, Georgia” and I gave her the address. Since that was all the information I had to give and I didn’t want to answer questions I repeated the address and hung up. I was just in time too as Jared came out and yelled out food was ready and he’d grab up a table. When he went back inside I breathed out a sigh of relief at having done something right, even if crazy.

It was then that I noticed my headache was gone and I felt good. Better than good, actually, as I walked back inside ACES.

I felt a little like the morning after I was struck by lightning.

It was then I decided that whatever it was that had made me know Riley’s location had to be related to me being zapped. All that electricity had done something to my brain alright, just nothing that any doctor would know anything about.

I somehow knew that it was over, too. I had been given something, I had no idea what, and I had used it and now it was done. I could go back to being me again and with luck, Riley could go back to being…well, whoever he was before he went missing.

I didn’t know then, that that was just the beginning for me and the new power I had gained. At the moment I was just a boy having a great greasy dinner with a cute guy who would thrill me on the way home with speed and leave me breathless with a full, thirty second kiss, a block down from my house so my parents wouldn’t see.

I wouldn’t think about Riley Van Galt for another month and a half when I got the chance to meet him face to face.


	2. Chapter 2

For the rest of the week nothing unusual happened to me. I didn’t suddenly know where random people were. I didn’t drop dead of an aneurysm or heart attack or have a seizure, I didn’t even have a headache.  
  
Which was why I felt I could push my luck and went back to the post office to see if there was a new poster up with any missing people. There wasn’t. I could have left it at that but something inside me said that I wouldn’t know if the thing with Riley had been a fluke or if I was some kind of mutant or something now (I like the X-Men, both the comics and the movies).  
  
So I thought, where would there be another community notice board like the one in the post office. The library was my first idea so that was where I went and sure enough there was a board full of papers. This one wasn’t nearly as full as the one in the post office. Someone must keep this one updated. Which is why when I saw the missing persons posters (there were two) they were recent.  
  
Hope Shavies was a year old when she went missing in 2015 with black hair and brown eyes. There was no aged picture for her.  
  
Jenny Mitchell had been thirteen when she went missing on her way home from school in 2010. She was blonde with blue eyes and had been wearing a blue dress. There was an aged photo of her and she was pretty.  
  
I wondered what had happened to them and that strange focus and slowing down of everything happened again, like it had when I had seen Riley’s poster. This time I noted the phone number to call. It was the same on both posters and I hoped the same on Riley’s which I had kept and was tucked away at the bottom of my underwear drawer. Not the best place to keep a picture of a young boy who is no relation to you but it wasn’t like it was a dirty picture or anything. Still I should have known better and tossed it out. I wrote down the girl’s names so if I suddenly discovered I knew where they were I could give Danneel the correct name to go with an address.  
  
As I left I was feeling both excited and apprehensive. Did I really want to  _try_  to find these girls or was I  _hoping_ to find these girls? Either way time would tell.  
  
The next morning I knew that baby Hope was in New Mexico and was happy.  
  
But I had tears running down my face because of Jenny and I struggled not to make noise as I cried for her. I didn’t have an address for Jenny. I had a location. Deep down in that place that gave me the details, I knew that Jenny was dead and that was why I had a location not a real address.  
  
I was still crying when I took my morning shower and at least then I could do it right if I had to do it quietly. I think it helped me to be able to better compose myself for when I had to go to school. Chris noticed right away that something wasn’t right and asked me about it. I didn’t want to lie to him but I didn’t want to tell him the truth. At least not yet. I figured I would tell him if I continued to have the power (or was it the ability) to find missing people. I figured that I might have to tell Jared, too, if I wanted (and right then, needed) his help.  
  
Knowing the addresses/location of missing people in the world meant nothing if I couldn’t give that information to anyone. To get it to where it needed to go, I needed an anonymous phone, and to get to that, I needed a car.  
  
I didn’t have a car, or a driver’s license for that matter so I needed someone who did have those things. I had used a pay phone during a date with Jared just a few days ago. If I wanted to go back to ACES and use the phone I probably needed Jared. But I didn’t want to seem too easy by asking him to take me again so soon, because I did want to go again. With him of course, not just for the phone and I was not going to go by myself. I tried to think of anywhere there would be a working pay phone. It took me most of first and second periods to mentally go through most of my home town but I remembered at last that the auto wrecking yard on the north side of town had one. Now I just had to get there.  
  
I skipped lunch (another headache was building killing my apatite on top of being depressed about Jenny) to debate who I should ask to drive me there, Chris or Jared and what excuse I would need to use to get them to take me. I finally settled on Chris with the explanation that I wanted to see if there were any cheap junkers that could run from point A to point B so that when I did get my license after begging my parents to let me take the test I could use my dismal paycheck to get something. My point-of-fact argument to my parents for this was the storm we had been caught in. Any car was better than no car and as much as I loved riding with Chris, I couldn’t do it forever. He might buy it and I would wheedle him shamelessly and continuously about it until he said yes. The sooner I could call Danneel and unburden my mind the better.  
  
With most of my plan laid out I spent the rest of the afternoon debating and feeling depressed over what to do about Jenny. Hope was a no brainer, I would give that address over in a heartbeat. But I didn’t have an address for Jenny because, unlike Hope, she was dead.  
  
How was I supposed to give the directions and by late afternoon, the coordinates of a grave I hadn’t seen, been to or had anything to do with to Danneel when I had just given her the address for a living person? I don’t know if I had been taken seriously from the first call or if my tip had been followed up and acted upon. I had hoped it would be, but I had no way of knowing. If they had checked and not found Riley, would they look into my new information? Would Danneel recognize my voice and write me off as some crazy loon looking for attention? Or if, as I knew in my heart, Riley was found where I said he would be, would they be concerned enough to look for me after I gave them the address of a new live kid and the location of a dead one?  
  
I was so confused and sad that I had to skip my last class and hide down in the school’s basement for a freak out and a cry. I hid in a nook that the stoners used at lunch to hide and get in a few puffs of a joint. In late afternoon it was empty and no one would come down for fear of being caught by the janitor who would be in his office down here getting ready for when the students and teachers left to get to serious work. I took my chances with being found but I needed the solitude.  
  
By now I had a few details of Hope’s house and whoever took her must love her from the comfort and toys they had.  
  
I also had information about Jenny that I didn’t want.  
  
She had been strangled after being…I was almost sick at that unspeakable thought, so I concentrated on Hope or when my mind went back to her what the land around her shallow grave looked like. At least she was by a flowering bush so if her ghost was around (if there were ghosts) she would have something nice to look at if she were stuck there. As much as I wanted to tell about where she was so she could be buried properly and her family could grieve, I was unsure if I wanted to step into what could be a quicksand mess that would swallow me whole.  
  
If I didn’t tell, would my headache not go away like it had when I’d told about Riley? If I told only about Hope would it go away and I could forget about Jenny? What would happen if I never told about Jenny, could my headache get worse and worse until I was in the hospital or it affected me enough to kill me somehow?  
  
I didn’t want to die and Jenny was already dead, I couldn’t save her. But I could help her family by finding her. If I told where she was and the people at missing people headquarters found her what would they do if I called again? Or even if I didn’t call again would they make an effort to try and find me? If they did and I used the pay phone at the wrecking yard like I had planned I was leading them to my town and closer to me.  
  
 _I_  did not want to be found, that was for certain.  
  
What would I say if they found me? What could or would they do to me if they found me? What would everyone think of me? (Yes, at that point in my life what people thought of me did matter even if I didn’t show it most of the time.) I was a seventeen year old boy in a small town with no immediate plans for anything but working my family’s restaurant after high school. I would likely end up staying in this town, so it mattered what people would think.  
  
In the end I was cried out and wiped out by the time I used the janitor’s utility sink to clean up my face and head to detention. I didn’t want more detention but seeing Jared might life my spirits, especially if I could sit next to him. Also, he might know where another pay phone was.  
  
When I entered detention right before the bell rang, he was in his usual seat, the one he had let me use when we sat together. To be fair, he had taken his seat back during the week and we hadn’t talked since our date. I was unsure of what he thought of it and if he liked me enough to ask me out on a second date. (I know it’s the twenty-first century and I could ask him on a date but I really wanted him to ask).  
  
I got a few looks from the other students when I made my way to the back of the class instead of taking my usual seat. I sat next to Jared and he gave me a slow once over as I sat. I didn’t see the note book we had used to communicate before or any note book for that matter. Jared usually came to detention empty handed. So it was up to me to start any conversation and provide the note book.  
  
I hoped I wasn’t being offensive or nosy, going for hopeful flirtation with my opening gambit.  
  
 _Do you have a cell phone?_  I passed it over and waited.  
  
Jared took his time reading the short message and then finding a pen in a pocket of his jacket to respond.  _No._  
  
That was it, short and sweet. I wrote back, trying not to be exasperated by what might be like pulling teeth to get him to ‘talk’ to me today. I wasn’t sure if it was because his brief interest in me had died since out date or if this was just the way he was when he wasn’t in the mood to…well, whatever mood he was in that made him sociable.  
  
 _Do you use pay phones when you need to make a call?_  
  
This time he gave me an odd look before shaking his head and writing something down that made the corner of his mouth facing me in profile, quirk up.  _Why do you have a fetish for pay phones?_  
  
Okay, so he wanted to be funny well two could play that game. I wrote my answer with a flourish on some of the words and felt a little better when I handed the note book over. We were flirting, I decided, which meant that Jared was still interested in me.  
  
 _I enjoy the psychic hotline and don’t want my parents to see me blowing my meager fortune on the astral plain._  
  
That got me a full smile from Jared as he faced me after reading and I smiled back. His answer was what I had hoped for.  
  
 _So you need a pay phone for you addiction and want me to enable your habit?_  
  
I wrote back hastily,  _yes!_  
  
He was slow to write down what I needed and I wasn’t sure if it was because he needed to think of where all the pay phones were or if he was teasing me or both. In the end he passed back a whole list of places around town and outside of town with pay phones. One of them was circled and  _Jared can be found here_ was written next to it with a helpful arrow and all. The phone was at a car garage that was in the poorest part of town. Jared, I knew worked at a garage from time to time and I guess this was it.  
  
 _Thanks._  I wrote on a new page having torn out the previous one and folding it up before slipping it into my pocket. I would need it to ask Chris to take me to one and I didn’t want to have to drag out my note book or see any of our conversation. Chris would give me some grief about Jared and if I showed any indication of being serious about him Chris would get Steve and interrogate him. Jared might make him nervous with his height, build and reputation, but Chris would do it anyway to make sure I was in good hands. I just didn’t need him to do it until Jared and I had worked out exactly what it was we were up for.  
  
 _Does this make me your dealer? Do I get benefits for supplying you with pay phones?_  Jared’s next note almost made me laugh as I pictured Jared standing on some street corner waving his hands ala Vanna White from Jeopardy at a pay phone and say it could be mine for the price of a date or a kiss-turn-make-out session.  
  
 _Sure thing, as long as I can get a ride to go with my fix, I’ll let you feel up my flat chest and smooth tummy._  
  
Now I was being forward and outrageous. I was in decent shape from having to work at the restaurant carrying things and moving in tight spaces but I wasn’t ripped like Jared. Yes, my stomach was flat but it wasn’t soft like a girls and my chest was flat, not a lot of muscle there to make anything defined or stand out. Still the idea of letting Jared touch me there if he really wanted made me blush and I ducked my head and leaned over to rummage in my bag. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular but I just wanted to hide my reaction to my flirting. I got back to normal or rather away from embarrassed quick when a pulse of pain shot through my head reminding me that the list Jared provided was not all about flirting. I needed to call the Center of Missing People today. When I righted myself, a book for English in hand, Jared was bent over the note book. He didn’t see how pale I was from the pain which faded when I was sitting upright again. I must have gotten my features and color back to normal by the time Jared handed over the note book.  
  
His answer was long, for him anyway.  
  
 _Any time you want to go for a ride we can go. Will you be working on Saturday? I know a great place to have a little fun and then we can have a different kind of fun after. Watch out for those psychic frauds or you won’t have any money to spend on gifts to thanks me for taking you to cool and far off places._  
  
Jared wanted another date this weekend and he was willing to drive me around. This was great. The fact that we could kiss or (well, it would be an and, it was Jared and he was hot) make out, too, was nice. Jared was nice and from what little I’d seen of him (ignore rumors of what I heard for now, don’t judge a book by its cover and all, or in Jared’s case, a biker by his nice, worn, leather jacket) kind and I was willing to bet smart. None of the rumors had him flunking in class, not paying attention or on the rare occasion, sleeping, but not flunking. I wanted that second date and ride on his motorcycle. But I was busy with my shift at the restaurant and I had already begged off once this week. Twice and my parents would ask me questions.  
  
 _Maybe some time next week. I need to earn the money to support my habit and now you. I figured I could go after one of our detentions or beg Mr. Morgan to let me have a day off to work which he wouldn’t know I wasn’t doing unless he showed up at the restaurant._  
  
Jared mulled this over before picking a date that would work for him.  _Next Thursday cool?_  
  
It was and I confirmed we were on before the bell rang to release us from detention. I didn’t realize how the time had passed so quickly and I had to scramble to get my notebook and English book back in my bag before rushing out to meet Chris who would drive me to a pay phone. Or at least I hoped to convince him to drive me to a pay phone. He was waiting in the usual spot for me and before I could climb into the cab of his truck, Jared sped by on his motorcycle with a honk and a wave. Chris narrowed his eyes as he watched Jared’s tail light disappear down the road. I was seated in the truck like nothing unusual had happened when Chris turned that narrowed gaze on me.  
  
“Something you want to tell me, Jenny?” He used a nickname I hated to try and get a rise out of me. By now he had to know I liked or had a crush on Jared and he didn’t approve. Plus, I had skipped a ride with him to go for a ride with Jared.  
  
“No.” I let him get away without objecting to the nickname because I needed a favor and getting upset and arguing with him wouldn’t get me anywhere in that department.  
  
Chris got into the truck and started it up but we didn’t go anywhere. “You want to date that riff-raff?”  
  
“I’m not sure yet,” was my honest answer. We’d had a single date but we weren’t dating.  
  
“He kiss you already?” Chris was blunt when he wanted to get information.  
  
“Yes, but I was okay with it.” I blushed just a bit at the memory but it went away quickly. If I kissed Jared some more, maybe the next time anyone brought it up I wouldn’t blush at all. Once you got used to something you stopped reacting to it so much. Or should that be more severely because there would always be some kind of reaction or else the human race would be as emotional as robots after a while.  
  
Chris just sat for another minute then shook his head. “Right. Well, let’s go” he put the truck in gear and we started to roll out of the parking lot.  
  
“I have a favor. I need to go to Stilton” I blurted one of the names on my list of pay phones which caused Chris to break hard and us to come to an abrupt stand still.  
  
“You want to go to Stilton? What for?” Chris sounded accusatory and he was probably thinking this decision had something to do with Jared.  
  
“I want to call my grandparents and I don’t want Mom to find out.” It was a good lie and one that Chris might buy if I pressed. My mother’s parents had some money and had been angered when she had married my dad. They had refused to talk to her until Josh was born and they wouldn’t help her out money wise at all unless it was in the form of a loan of money. After Josh they did talk only seldomly, usually on big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. They talked to us (Josh, Mac and I) to get an update on our lives as we got older and on the fourth of July to see what we wanted for Christmas when we were younger but now to ask us what we were going to do with our lives when we got out of high school. To return the sentiment of ill will from them to my mom my dad would only say a few words to them if he had to and didn’t like us talking to them. Mom fretted over this so in the end she didn’t like us talking too much to her parents either. I didn’t want to upset either of them so I did as they did and spent as little time as possible on any call. If I wanted to contact them for any reason it was a sure bet I wasn’t going to do it on the house phone, the restaurant phone, or any of our cell phones.  
  
“Why do you want to call them?” Chris still hadn’t started driving again and I figured he would wait until he got a satisfactory answer.  
  
“I want to ask them about money for the hospital bill.” I would never do so because the Ackles family was a proud family and Chris knew that but he also knew they had money.  
  
“You want to go behind your parents back for a loan?” Chris’s voice was sarcastic and I knew he wasn’t buying the bullshit I was selling.  
  
“No, I want to guilt them into giving money to the hospital which can be taken off the bill.” That way my parents wouldn’t know, I wouldn’t have to pay anything back plus…”They can take it as a tax write off.” I know from our Christmas call a few months ago that they hadn’t donated as much as they had the previous year to charity and commented that gifts would be smaller since they would end up paying more taxes. Dad called them penny pinchers and misers. Hey, now that I thought about it I should totally act on this plan. After I called about Hope and maybe Jenny.  
  
Chris stared at me long enough I started to fidget then shook his head. “It’s your funeral.” But he started driving again. I wasn’t sure he was actually going to drive me to Stilton until we got on the main road out of town. “Where exactly in Stilton are we going?” He asked as we left the last building in town in the rearview mirror.  
  
For that I did have to pull out Jared’s list and I checked it as quickly as possible. “Their library.” I didn’t associate a library with a pay phone but as I thought about it, it made sense. Anyone needing a ride home who didn’t have a cell phone would use it. Plus, when we got there it was on the same block as a car garage so people needing rides while their car was in the shop could use it, too. I told Chris I wanted privacy for my call since I might have to beg for the money and Chris told me he’d wait for me at the garage where he could talk shop about fixing cars.  
  
I still had a lot of the quarters I had procured for my first call and used a handful before dialing the number as I had before, only faster, since I had studied it over the week. When the phone on the other end was picked up I jumped right in to get it over with in case Chris changed his mind and came back or someone in the library came to close to me to hear what I was saying.  
  
“Danneel, I think I might know where Hope Shavies is,” but before I could rattle off the address I was interrupted.  
  
“This is Anne, Danneel is off duty today.” The voice I now heard definitely wasn’t the soft southern lilt of Danneel.  
  
Thinking back I now realized that if I had paid a little more attention when Anne was going through the whole Center for Missing and Exploited Children I would have noticed. Now I was stuck on what to do. I had planned on talking to Danneel and it hadn’t occurred to me that she might not be working today or even that the phone might be picked up by someone besides Danneel. It was a national organization after all, there had to be lots of people answering lots of phones.  
  
“Hello, are you there?” Anne’s voice in my ear brought me back from my musings. I don’t know how much time had passed and I didn’t want my money to run out and possibly inform me I needed to add more quarters and let Anne know I was on a pay phone.  
  
“Hope Shavies is in New Mexico,” I repeated the address twice so Anne could get it down even though I was talking in a rush. It only got worse when I suddenly went full steam ahead and damn the consequences and told them the location for Jenny and described the flower bushes next to her in brief, but nice detail. When I was done, Anne tried to ask for my name but I hung up. I felt good for having given the information to Anne and wired from the thrill of the act I was doing in public and not getting caught. Out of a handful of change I had put in the phone I got a single quarter back, unlike at ACES’s phone. I had taken too long and I grabbed the quarter before hurrying to get Chris and head home.  
  
I didn’t think about missing people or rushed phone calls and random addresses all weekend as I worked hard and picked up an extra shift and a half at the restaurant. I needed the tips to replace the money I had spent on pay phones and would spend again on them as I decided I would hunt down another missing person’s poster. I had found three people and there wasn’t any indication I couldn’t do it again.  
  
Also between Mac watching Lilo and Stitch and catching the end of Cast Away I felt good that I could help those missing people find their families and homes again, that they could be reunited with loved ones. Even Jenny whose parents could at least stop worrying about her now and move on with grieving and life like normal people.  
  
I knew that Jared would take me out on Thursday and I could get him to take me to a pay phone and I didn’t want to have to deal with a headache for a week so I didn’t go looking for another poster until Wednesday. I had spent that detention in my own seat pretending to do homework when I was making a list if all the likely places in town to find missing person posters.  
  
I also toyed with the idea of maybe picking up a missing pet poster. If I could find missing people could I find missing pets? While giving addresses to the Center (the name I was now calling the Center for Missing and Exploited Children because that was too big a mouthful) was the right thing to do, if I had the information and it made me feel like I was doing something good, there might be a reward for lost pets I could collect. I had no issues about doing it if I had the talent to find missing pets. In the area of Texas where I lived, most of the pets would be long gone by the time, or shortly after, any posters were put up. I would just have to be choosey about which pets I wanted or thought I could find in good condition. I also had to contend with the fact that not all places with poster boards would put up the missing person’s posters or that they might not be updated often and there could be duplicate posters around town. Would I be subject to the same addresses more than once if I studied or saw the same posters again and again or would nothing happen since I had already given up the addresses? It was all new to try like a science experiment (later I would cringe at this way of thinking, when I had for a brief time become the science experiment).  
  
The post office and the library didn’t have any new posters and the grocery store only had a board up for their notices. There was, however, a poster I hadn’t seen in the town’s only laundromat. This one must have been ancient from how yellow and wrinkled it was. It was a split picture poster with an original on the left and an aged on the right.  
  
Carlos Ramirez was seven when he disappeared in 1999 and the aged photograph showed him at age fourteen. He’d be about twenty-four or so now but I guess that didn’t matter. He had been a child when he went missing and a child when this poster was made. His family was still looking for him (I hoped) if they had okayed a poster a few years back (okay more like a decade ago) but missing was missing. I took the poster and left so I could focus on it at home since I hadn’t gotten that funny slow down feeling by glancing at it right there in between the washers and dryers.  
  
I didn’t end up studying it right before bedtime since Mom and Dad wanted a family dinner that night. They both had the night off since Dad’s parents were covering for them. Dad’s parents love us and Mom and aren’t anything like Mom’s parents. They are a little better off than we are and chip in when they can, including running the restaurant for a few days or nights each month so that we can have some time besides when we are all working at the restaurant.  
  
At dinner everyone got a turn to talk about what was going on in their own little spheres of our connected lives. Like me and Mac talked about how school was going and Josh hemmed and hawed about the possibility of maybe going to night classes at the community college a few towns over. Plus there was my minor role in Chris and Steve’s band, and Mac’s wanting to go to a camp this summer.  
  
Money was tight with my hospital bill and while they would try to send Mac to camp she might have to wait another year. If Josh went to school could he get a grant or scholarship or financial aid because even though they wanted to, Dad and Mom couldn’t help him with tuition but he could still live at home rent free if he could commute.  
  
They, Mom and Dad, were going to try out some new menu items during the summer. They also hoped to get an ad in some of the local papers to attract more customers. By the time everyone was talked out and dinner and dessert were eaten it was late. It was Mac’s turn to help Mom with the dishes so I went up to my room to study the poster I had picked up earlier.  
  
I sat on my bed and held the poster in my lap. I really read the information this time as I studied it. Carlos Ramirez had been seven when he disappeared walking home from the park a block away from his house. He was supposed to be with friends but they had stayed behind. He was olive skinned with black hair and brown eyes. He had been tall for his age at four foot four and weighed a good fifty-five pounds. He had a nickel sized dark birth mark on his left outer forearm close to the elbow. He had been wearing a blue and grey striped polo shirt and tan khaki pants. I studied both pictures but time seemed to slow when I studied the original photo. When everything was back to normal I made sure the number on the bottom was the same and put it in my underwear drawer with Riley Van Galt’s poster.  
  
I wondered if I didn’t go to sleep would I know where Carlos was in the morning. But that would be a different experiment as I was tired and I wanted to look good, not like a sleep deprivation tester when I had my date with Jared. I also didn’t want to fall asleep on our date that would just be awkward and rude. So I slept and when I woke up I knew that Carlos was in Los Angeles, California. I wondered how he had gotten all the way over there but he was an adult now and could have gotten there himself. I had no idea where he had grown up after he went missing, that knowledge was out of my reach I only knew where he was currently.  
  
During the day I didn’t get a headache and that was progress. Maybe the more people I found and the longer I used my power the more used to it my brain would become and the fewer or lesser the headaches. Maybe they would even go away completely as I used my power to find people. And maybe I would develop a brain tumor or an aneurysm and keel over dead one day in class.  
  
The day passed quickly, and I was excited for detention instead of ambivalent about it for a change. Jared and I sat apart in our usual seats so the gossip mill wouldn’t start up about us. That was still a mystery to me since I was a bit of an outsider, if a bit nerdy (I did occasionally tutor kids) while Jared was the bad ass loner who was probably going to end up in prison if you took the gossip about him to be true. After detention he met me out front with his motorcycle and the spare helmet.  
  
We went south and eventually ended up in a wooded marshy area I had no idea existed. Jared took me on a little tour of the place and I loved it. He knew all about the plants and animals we were seeing. After a while when both our stomachs were rumbling loud enough for both of us to hear we went to the nearest town to get dinner. Jared went through the drive through of a KFC and we ate in the towns green common. While we ate, Jared pointed out a pay phone which I could use while he cleaned up the remains of dinner and got the motorcycle ready to go home.  
Putting in the usual handful of quarters I dialed the number for the Center by heart. It rang twice when it was picked up by none other than Danneel. I was very happy to hear her voice and decided to tell her so. “It’s good to hear a familiar voice, Danneel, I have an address for you.”  
  
“Oh, it’s you!” she didn’t have a name to call me. “Where are you?”  
  
It was an awkward question because I was calling to give her an address about someone who was missing and she was asking where I was. “Carlos Ramirez he’s at…” But Danneel cut me off before I could give the address.  
  
“My supervisor wants to talk to you.” Danneel sounded a little stressed and I didn’t like this turn of events.  
  
“But I have an address of a missing kid. Well, he wouldn’t be a kid anymore but still.” Again I didn’t get to give the address.  
  
“How do you know where these kids are?” Danneel really did sound like she wanted to know and it was starting to bug me that I couldn’t finish what I had set out to do. Plus I was running out of time on the quarter meter.  
  
“I just do, isn’t that enough?” I let her have one more pause then I was going to give her the address for Carlos weather I had to talk over her or not.  
  
“You’ve been correct every time. Have you seen the news? We found all the kids and their parents all want to thank you. There was a reward, too, for Hope, that her parents want you to have.” Danneel was beginning to talk fast and there was an increase of voice background noise. I guessed that our conversation was attracting attention on her end. She had said that someone in charge wanted to talk to me. A honking got my attention and I saw Jared straddling his motorcycle, helmet already on. Psychic hotlines were expensive things and how much could you talk about besides getting generic advice. He must have thought I’d be done quicker or my quarters would have run out sooner. The reward for finding Hope was tempting but if I wanted to collect it I had to give up my anonymity and I wasn’t going to do that.  
  
“The reward is five thousand dollars. If you would just tell me your name and where you are.” Danneel sounded almost pleading and I wondered if her boss had shown up by now.  
  
“Carlos Ramirez is in Los Angeles” I said holding up one finger in Jared’s direction to indicate I needed one more minute. I gave Danneel the address twice like I usually did and hung up on her asking if I would tell her when who I was. It was good timing because I could also hear the machine asking me to put in more money on top of Danneel’s question about my identity. Since there was no change for me to collect I jogged over to Jared and hopped on the back of the motorcycle.  
  
“What took you so long?” Jared asked as I strapped on my helmet.  
  
“I was learning how many kids I’d have with this totally hot naturalist who liked bikes and picnics in far off places,” I replied smoothly as I wrapped my hands around his waist. “I just hope that you don’t lose your figure popping out all my babies.”  
  
Jared laughed so hard that I shook from our joint body contact before he started the motorcycle and we were on the road. This time when he stopped a block from my house we kissed several times and his fingers found their way just under my t-shirt and skated over the skin at the bottom of my stomach.  
  
“I think at the rate we’re going you’ll have a bun in that oven, soon” Jared said breaking off the last kiss and sliding me stunned (and blushing madly) off the back of the motorcycle. “See you tomorrow.” walked the motorcycle a few feet away from me and then sped off.  
  
I stood and watched him go like an idiot for a minute before I began to laugh. When I finally made it down the block and into the house I was grinning hard enough my face began to hurt and that night I dreamed of kissing and rubbing against Jared. (Pretty PG stuff but I hadn’t seen Jared without less than two layers of clothes on and what I knew of his body was what I could feel was when I was pressed against him when we were on his motorcycle and had my arms around his waist.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning I started my day like any other (when I hadn’t focused on a missing person’s poster) but it didn’t last long. When I got to school there was a big black SUV like all the FBI spooks use in the movies. There was also a police cruiser parked in the next slot. I wondered what had happened to warrant the police. Was there a drug bust going down or something? I knew of a few kids who did pot or had some extra pills from time to time to sell to anyone looking for a good time but nothing on the scale to call in the police. As for the black SUV I didn’t let it bother me too much, I didn’t want to know. If I had thought about it (I blame the fact I am not a morning person) I would have turned right around and gone home.  
  
It turns out that both of the cars were there for me. I knew we were starting a new chapter in government (my first period) so I grabbed the text book from my locker were it stayed whenever I wasn’t actually reading it. It was big and heavy and no one wanted to carry that sucker around. When I entered the classroom there was a police officer and a man and a woman in dark suits nest to the teacher's desk. My first thought was that someone was going to have a fun time with the goon squad until I realized that they were all looking at me.  
  
The man in the dark suit was the first to speak. “Jensen, Jensen Ackles,” it was more statement than question. I didn’t respond and so he was the first to move as well, coming towards me with a slow but purposeful walk.  
  
I tried to think of anything I had done that the school would bring in the big guns, let alone the police. Okay, so the police I could maybe understand with the whole fighting with members of the football team but that was a month ago. I hadn’t done anything bad for a while now that I thought about it. Instead, I had been doing some good things, mainly finding missing kids and returning them. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t returning them personally and there might be a process they had to go through before they could get home to their families.  
  
Oh.  
  
It came to me about the same time as Mr. Dark Suit did. They wanted me for something I had done right but something that no one was supposed to do. (Fine it was that some people could do since some people knew where a missing persons was, they were supposed to turn them in if you wanted to get technical. At least in theory but with society going down the toilet generation by generation that was up for debate.)  
  
“Mr. Ackles, you need to come with us.” The woman and the police officer were making their way towards us now. I could see that the officer was Chief Beaver and knew that even if the spooks had waited for him to bring me to the police station instead of joining him to get me, I was in big trouble. Chief Beaver was usually a laid back kind of guy but whenever he got involved in your affairs shit had hit the fan.  
  
I backed up a step (big mistake) my heart rate speeding up as I told myself (internally) to just act normal. No one knew what I could do or had been doing. At least I didn’t think so. (I was both right and wrong) no one in Texas knew what I was doing but the people at the Center recorded all their calls (I had been wrong about that, too, from my earlier guess).  
  
“Just come with us, no reason to make a scene,” Mr. Dark Suit’s voice was lowered and very serious as he reached out for my arm.  
  
That was a mistake for him.  
  
As he grabbed me, Chief Beaver saw and quickened his pace leaning forward to get to us faster. “Now wait a minute” but he never got to finish whatever was to come after that opening protest.  
  
To this day I couldn’t tell you why I did it, but if Mr. Dark Suit thought I was causing a scene before he grabbed me, it was nothing compared to the scene, or scenes, really, because his gabbing me set off a chain reaction of them, I made next. The good old fight or flight response kicked in and the anger and fear that was growing in my tightening belly settled on fight first and flight second instead of the other way around like the average person.  
  
I swung my big, fat, heavy, government (oh the irony when I found out Mr. dark suit was FBI) book in a powerful sweeping arch that would make a major league batter weep tears of joy and I struck Mr. Dark Suit in the face. He let go of me as he cried out over a very audible, and satisfying, thinking back on it later, sounding crunch that had to be something going wonky with his nose. I wasted no time in dropping the book that would have been a dead anchor weight and turned on my heels to run down the hall.  
  
Mrs. Dark Suit and Chief Beaver were hot on my tail and I knew that if I left the building I wouldn’t get far. (I didn’t get far anyway in the end). I was better versed in the architecture of the school and used it to my advantage sprinting through the halls to somewhere that I felt safe and to someone who could and might (okay, I knew he would) protect me.  
  
JD’s office door was open and I was over the moon for that stroke of luck as I slid into the office grabbing the door handle to help me stop. It jerked my arms but I didn’t have time to think about the pain as I slammed the door shut behind me in front of Mrs. Dark Suits face and turned the lock with shaking fingers.  
  
JD, who had been at his desk, was quick to react, shooting up from his seat (dropping the pizza he was eating on a file open on the desk) and was already around the desk and at my side when there was pounding on the door and the handle was rattling.  
  
“What is going on? Are you okay, Jensen?” It wasn’t mild mannered JD, high school counselor, standing beside me. It was Captain Jeffery Dean Morgan of the US Marines and he would defend me like he would one of the underlings in his old troops. At least I hoped that he would, me being a helpless teenager against two FBI goons. I didn’t count Chief Beaver because once he knew I hadn’t done anything wrong he’d be on my side. Also he was an ex-soldier too and would wait to see what was going on before making any decisions.  
  
“This is the FBI! Open the door!” Mr. Dark Suit’s voice came through said door loud and clear if a bit high and nasally.  
  
I hoped I had broken his nose but couldn’t express that thought as JD looked at me very seriously. “Quit banging on the door!” JD raised his voice but he didn’t shout. His voice was very authoritative the like of which I had heard only once when my mother got angry and went off on a preteen who was making fun of my sister Mac at the pool one summer when she was learning to swim and using every flotation device imaginable and that would fit on her body at once. No one argued with that voice unless they wanted trouble. Mr. Dark Suit on the other side either didn’t notice or had a death wish because he pounded again and shouted back.  
  
“I’m agent Christopher Heyerdahl of the FBI, you have a suspect of interest with you that we need for questioning. I order you to open this door!” Mr. Dark Suit had a name and it was a mouthful, I would continue to call him Mr. Dark Suit or just Mr. Dark. I didn’t like him anymore now that he had identified himself, something he should have started off with, then I had disliked him a minute ago.  
  
JD turned to me to me and asked in a whisper so low I almost didn’t hear it so anyone outside the office wouldn’t be able to even if they had their ear pressed to the door. “Did you break the law?”  
  
I shook my head so violently I almost gave myself whiplash. I was getting upset and didn’t trust myself to keep my voice low or from cracking or going into hysterics. I really wanted to be safe, I wanted JD to protect me, but I wasn’t sure he would if he thought I had done something wrong. This was my internal, unconfident self that all teenagers have but most won’t admit exists giving me the negative and depressing spin on things.  
  
“Are you closely associated with someone who broke the law to the point of accessory?” JD was also talking very fast, as well as very low, and I almost didn’t understand him.  
  
I shook my head no again and my heart rate and breathing increased and my lip trembled slightly to my rising panic.  
  
“One last chance, open this door or I’ll break it down!” More pounding on the door and Mr. Dark yelling.  
  
This was followed by two voice competing with each other to rebuke Mr. Dark.  
  
“Christopher!” A woman’s voice sounded slightly embarrassed and had a bit of warning, of what, who knew, her partner was bigger than she was.  
  
“Now wait a minute!” That was Chief Beaver’s voice and it was angry as well as threatening. Chief Beaver wouldn’t allow me to be hurt even if he had to follow a superior’s lead.  
  
JD looked to the door when he heard Chief Beaver and pushed me towards the chair I usually sat it. I sat because it was something to do and because I might fall down if I didn’t and my body became weak and panic set in. JD had moved to the side of the door like cops do on TV and in movies.  
  
“Chief is that you out there?” He didn’t call Chief Beaver by his name which I thought was odd but didn’t matter when he answered.  
  
“Yeah, JD, it’s me. You guys okay in there?” Was he asking because he thought I would hold JD hostage or because he was worried about us?  By us, I mean me, since I was no threat to JD but he could hurt me if he thought I had done something. Again with that negative depressing inner voice which brought me closer to a meltdown.  
  
“We’re okay,” JD sounded reassuring for a moment before he went back to that authoritative voice from earlier. “What the hell is going on Chief?”  
  
Mr. Dark tried to answer but his un-named partner cut him off and she sounded mad now. It was quiet outside the office for a second or two while the goons probably were hashing things out with Chief Beaver.  
  
“Could we come in?” Chief Beaver asked when they must have made up their minds about what to do.  
  
“Explanation first.” JD wouldn’t budge.  
  
“It appears that Mr. Ackles has been making some calls to the…” there was a break and some mumbling before Chief Beaver went on. “To the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He has provided them with a few addresses for several missing kids. That information has been correct,” Chief Beaver emphasized that point, that I had been truthful like maybe there was a presumed question as to whether I had prank called them with fake tips. Maybe Chief Beaver had asked that question of the FBI when they came looking for me. They would have to tell the truth and…when I don’t know or couldn’t think of anything else for why he or they would ask or tell whatever it was information wise they had traded.  
  
“Just a minute,” JD’s voice was softer but still carried through the door. He came over to my side and his face was curious. “Are they telling the truth Jensen? Did you make those calls about the missing kids?” His voice was kind and there was nothing accusing or suspicious or even curious in his voice.  
  
All I could do was nod my head yes as the first tears slipped down my cheeks. I was crying. I hadn’t cried since I was twelve and fallen off my bike and sprained my wrist really bad. I had thought it was broken but it wasn’t and I had to have a sling to keep my arm steady for a few weeks.  
  
JD handed me a tissue from a box that had been hidden by a stack of books on his desk. “We’ll sort this out, Jensen, don’t you worry. I’m going to deal with Jim and those,” here he paused for a second before grunting, “People.”  
  
It took me a moment to realize that Jim was Chief Beaver. JD went back to the door and unlocked it before opening it a crack. He stood in that crack so he could see out but everyone out in the hall could not see in.  
  
“Chief Beaver why don’t you take Mr. Heyerdahl-“ He didn’t address the man by his rank, probably as a slight and that made me glad. “And this woman to the conference room. My office isn’t big enough for everyone and all of us can talk there.” He didn’t give them any chance to respond to his order, yes, it was an order. He had used his authority voice again, before he shut the door and relocked it.  
  
Mr. Dark Suit yelled about how he was in charge and pounded on the door for a few seconds before his partner and Chief Beaver got him to stop as JD walked behind his desk. They must have left to do as JD ordered since it was all quiet after that in the hall. JD grabbed the waste basket and held it out to me for my very used tissue. Waste basket back on the floor, me not crying anymore and somewhat composed, he sighed.  
  
“I’m going to call your parents to come here. You are a minor and the FBI or police can’t question you without your parents or legal guardian present. I’ll suggest that they bring a lawyer if they have one. Then we’ll talk. When they get here the FBI will talk to you, I don’t think there is any way to get around that. I want you to be honest with them but only answer direct questions. Don’t elaborate just give them the facts and everything should be cleared up and everyone can go back to their normal lives.”  
  
I highly doubted this since JD didn’t know exactly what I had done. There was no way my life was ever going to be normal again unless this power for finding missing kids went away. So far it hadn’t weakened and showed no signs of going away. I wondered for a second if it would ever go away or if I could wear it out.  That thought was put aside when JD picked up the phone to call my parents. They would likely freak out that the FBI were here to question me. Nothing like this had ever happened to the family, we went about life with our heads down and keeping to ourselves. We didn’t have a family lawyer to offer advice, although JD seemed very knowledgeable about such matters from what he’d said to me a minute ago. The phone call went quickly and I assumed my parents would be on their way.  
  
“Your parents are on their way,” JD did confirm. “They said they would call a lawyer.” With that, JD picked up the phone again but after he pressed just a few buttons put it back in the cradle and I could hear ringing on the speaker function. It was picked up after a few rings by a confused sounding Chief Beaver. “Beaver this is Morgan, Mr. Ackles and I will join you as soon as his parents arrive…” He was cut off by an angry Mr. Dark Suit.  
  
“You will bring Mr. Ackles now! He is wanted for questioning and you have no right to keep him from interrogation!”  
  
Before he could continue, JD cut him off and sounded downright scary. “Mr. Heyerdahl I am sure you are aware that it is against the law to question a minor without the presence or consent of said minor’s parents or legal guardian, and since Mr. Ackles hasn’t broken any laws, your attitude is unwarranted and uncalled for. If you persist in this harassment I will have to make a complaint to your superior. Settle down, settle in and we’ll all be with you soon.” JD hung up the phone then and leaned back in his chair. We sat for a minute in silence before he sat up straight and focused all his attention on me. “I think you need to explain what has been going on Jensen” his voice was back to being kind.  
  
I could have cried again over the whole situation and how JD was sticking up for me but I didn’t thankfully, I was embarrassed enough for the little bit I had earlier. I nodded and told him about being struck by lightning, which he knew already and about how I had seen the first missing poster of Riley and how the morning after I knew where he was. I told him about how I had made my first call to the Center. I did not tell him about my date with Jared or that I had called from ACES’s pay phone. I told him how I had tried out another poster and the results of that call. A few tears slipped out over the fate of Jenny and JD gave me another tissue but he never interrupted me. So I went on with the last poster and phone call and about the reward for Hope that I didn’t want. When I was done I felt a little better for getting everything off my chest.  
  
“Well, that is quite the talent you seem to have picked up,” JD said when I was finished. We sat for a minute in silence after that thinking. “I would tell the FBI that and nothing more unless they ask you questions and just stick to the basic facts when answering. You can even repeat part of that…” He broke off trying to come up with a word other than story for what I had told him that would reassure me he was on my side. “Line of facts,” he finished at last.  
  
After that, we just waited, not saying anything, both in our own worlds of thought until the door handle of the office rattled and my dad’s voice called out, “Jensen!”  
  
My parents had arrived. JD got up and opened the door with me at his side. When my parents saw me unhurt they seemed to sag a bit in relief. My mom rushed forward to pull me into a hug that was tight enough to bruise ribs. I let her hug me for a moment knowing how scared she had to be. I had been struck by lightning, had the possibility of damage from said strike hanging over me and now they had been called because the FBI wanted me. Mom was going to need therapy after everything was over…or she’d go completely gray from worry. She always said that was the reason whenever she pointed out another grey hair.  
  
“I suggest we get this over with so you can take your son home.” JD startled mom enough to let go of me. I don’t think she had noticed him in the doorway. JD squeezed past us and led us down the hall to a door at the end. When he opened it, three annoyed faces turned to us. I don’t think the FBI and Chief Beaver had been getting along during their wait. We all filed in and it was then that I noticed that there was a man I hadn’t seen before with my parents. He was average all the way around in appearance. Average height, average build, non-descript haircut for his brown hair, brown eyes without glasses and flat line of a mouth. We all sat down around the table and JD suggested that we all introduce ourselves.  
  
“Just one moment,” The man who had come with my parents said and he put a briefcase he had been carrying on the table. Opening it he pulled a slim black recorder out, closed the briefcase and replaced it on the floor. He turned the machine on and left it on the table. “I am Mr. Browne.” I kid you not, that was his name, “and I am the Ackles attorney.”  
  
I had no idea where my parents had found him or how they could afford him; with a recorder ready to go he must be smart and know his business and those kind of lawyers are expensive, but I was instantly glad he was there.  
  
 From there my parents introduced themselves, I identified myself, not like everyone in the room didn’t know who I was, JD gave his full name as did Chief James Beaver. Mr. Dark Suit gave his name again and the woman was finally identified as Agent Erica Carroll. Mr. Browne had Mr. Dark Suit explain why he and Agent Carroll were there to question me.  
  
They explained about the anonymous calls to the Center with correct information that only insiders should know about missing kids so they had tracked me down. It hadn’t been easy for them but they had found me out narrowing the search with each call and come to interrogate me.  
  
I’d like to point out now, the difference in the language used by the opposing parties. One was aggressiveness that went above and beyond for my circumstances, in my opinion, that proved to be a warning for my treatment by them in hindsight. The other was a calming de-escalation of afore mentioned tension that was more appropriate.  
  
With that, Mr. Browne had me explain myself for the calls and how I had come across such information. I repeated the story I had told JD not long before we had come into the conference room. The room was chaos when I finished with everyone trying to ask different questions of me. JD had to step in since he was the only one who didn’t have any questions since this was his second time around the block. He used his commanding voice to tell everyone that they could all ask their questions, but in turn, around the table, with my parents getting first pick.  
  
Mom and dad wanted to know if I was okay and why I hadn’t told them what was happening. I answered that I was fine, which I was, physically, I was not going to admit I was a bit scared and that it was embarrassing and creepy to admit I had been dreaming about little kids and I didn’t know if it would last. What if I told them and then the power went away? Next, I assured Chief Beaver that I didn’t know any of the kids, hadn’t seen them before or knew anyone who knew them. Anything I did know came from the posters and my dreams/powers. Browne was satisfied that I had only called the Center about the kids and had let them do their jobs. I had not broken any laws and couldn’t be charged with conspiracy or obstruction.  
  
Of the two agents Carroll went first. She asked me if I had other symptoms from the lightning to go with my dreams like bleeding hands and feet or hearing voices. It kind of freaked me out since I knew she was talking religious stuff like stigmata. I didn’t see how the two could be connected and I wasn’t all that religious. Mom and dad were and went to the occasional church service when they could. I hadn’t gone since I was a kid or rather since I had started helping out at the restaurant. I could see from the look on my parent’s faces that they were considering these questions but they didn’t speak up.  
  
Agent Heyerdahl was the last to get to ask me anything and he must have been thinking fast and hard to get his schemes in order to dupe everyone. “It seems you have quite the talent, Mr. Ackles, but have you considered the risks?”  
  
“Risks?” my mom couldn’t help interrupting. A mother is, or should be, attuned or worried about the health and wellbeing of their children, although not every mother is this way in reality and it makes me sad to think about it.  
  
“Well, yes,” Agent Heyerdahl went on in a voice that evoked more worry. “Your son was hit by lightning and while he was checked out by a doctor at the time, you didn’t follow up with any check-ups did you?” This was not a question, he was assuming and he had nailed it. “They are expensive and seem like such an unnecessary inconvenience to the average working person.” He had to know all about my family and our situation, it was the only way he could be playing the people in the room like he was. “But over time complications can come up that weren’t immediately visible after the accident. Electricity takes such a toll on the body and a tiny defect can grow over time and strain can last until suddenly the body can’t go on.”  
  
“You mean Jensen could die!” My mom was beginning to panic and clutched at dad’s hand and it looked like he was about to speak up when agent Heyerdahl went on.  
  
“That is a possibility but we would like to run some tests on Jensen and we could give him a full medical check-up.” He was using my first name now and I wasn’t happy about that. Especially since he was talking as if I wasn’t in the room. “We know so little about the human mind and Jensen’s has begun acting in a way that could benefit mankind. Think of all the missing kids he could find. Or missing soldiers and prisoners of war who have been away from their families for decades. He could even find criminals so they can be brought to justice and save future victims.”  
  
I thought he was laying it on thick but I could see everyone else eating it up. Even JD, who was on my side, but he was a former soldier and that remark about POW’s would appeal to him.  
  
“There are rewards occasionally for finding some of these people that I am sure Jensen would receive. He could use them for college or give them to charity.” This would play well for my parents who would love to see me get a college education and maybe I could save some or give some to Josh or Mac. I was known to share some of the important things and they shared in turn, because we knew how hard it was for mom and dad to spend money on something other than bills sometimes. “He could get a thorough check-up and constant medical care while we run a few experiments to see how his mind works and reunite some families in the process.”  
  
By now I had had enough and didn’t want to hear any more. Plus, I didn’t want everyone to keep eating up what was now sugar but was sure to be or turn out to be poison. I wasn’t going to go anywhere and be experimented on!  
  
“Um, excuse me, but I’m not going to be shipped off to some secret government research lab somewhere so you can play mad scientist on me.” My angry and loud voice seemed to break the spell Agent Heyerdahl had been weaving. But he had gotten his hooks in and my parents' responses showed it.  
  
“Jensen, honey, what about the doctors and health tests? You need to get checked out.” My mom probably had scenarios of me dropping dead of a heart attack while looking at missing kids posters.  
  
“I can have Doctor Miller look at me or the doctor from the hospital, they’d know more than someone starting from scratch.” Doctor Miller had been our family doctor forever and he was older than dirt. Thinking about that now, I guess that didn’t make him stand out as the best choice since Mr. Dark Suit could claim he could over look something. Also, the doctor who had treated me for being struck by lightning in the first place could pass on his notes and/or consult with the government doctor since he didn’t know that much. A lightning strike was a lightning strike, it was what came later that was important and I hadn’t had that check-up yet to show any real difference, (if there even was one).  
  
Mom piped in that yes Doctor Miller would be a good choice and just like I predicted, Agent Heyerdahl pointed out he might miss something or wouldn’t be up to date with all the current and cutting age practices and that the government had the newest technology to go with the newest doctors to treat me, like there was already something wrong with me. I suppose, in a way, there was, or must have been, since I now had the power to find missing kids in my sleep.  
  
“Okay, so you guys give me a check-up, why can’t I just go on finding missing people from my own bed? What if this power I have doesn’t work outside my house? What if I get to the lab and it goes away?” I was raising valid points and the tide turned just a bit my way, but Agent Heyerdahl was slick and he countered me well. I could tell, however, that he was getting angry at my arguing with him.  
  
“We would like to study how your mind works to understand your powers better. To do that you would need to be where all the equipment is and the scientists. Also we have doctors on staff so that even if you have a clean bill of health for your check-up if anything comes up while you are being…tested,”  Here there was a brief hesitation over the word, like he had wanted to say something else, “You can have the best medical help immediately. Lastly, we cut out the middle man. You wouldn’t have to call the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, you could just tell us and we could send police or agents out to get the children right away instead of waiting for them to get their notes to us. Oh, and as a bonus you would be saving money from not using pay phones.” Agent Heyerdahl smiled at me, rather malevolently, I thought, as he just off my escape routes in reasoning.  
  
“You forgot to mention what happens if he can’t find people outside our house,” Dad’s voice seemed to break our standoff.  
  
“Nothing happens except Jensen goes home. The tests are on us, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to him. He has already reunited families with their missing kids. He’s a kind of hero, it’s the least we could do. If he loses the powers it would be a disappointment but there is nothing anyone can do about that. If he can only find people from his room, I hope we can find some way to have a night or two to have a scientist over with some equipment to monitor him there with your permission.” He addressed this last bit to my parents. “We could do some studies and make sure he isn’t being harmed by finding children and after that we could set up a direct line to us so we can still work quickly to retrieve the children.”  
  
Now I was getting scared again as well as angry (that emotion was feeding into the fear). My life was going to be taken over one way or another and I was going to be studied and watched like an exotic, endangered animal in a zoo. I just wanted to go home and everyone turned to look at me. It took a moment to realize I had said that bit out loud. I tried to save face by pushing on and I know I sounded like a whiny kid, but I was ready for this train to stop and let me off. “I don’t want to go to some lab a thousand miles from home to be studied. I feel fine and I like talking to Danneel.”  
  
“We have a research lab right here in Texas a few hours away so you won’t be far from home.” Agent Carroll spoke up for the first time and she sounded sympathetic and understanding. She had drunk the Kool-Aid and believed in her partner. Either that or she had drunk the government Kool-Aid and what was good for them was justifiable to whatever they might do to me.  
  
“I do urge you to go,” Agent Heyerdahl was letting some of the irritation he was feeling show. “I think it would be the best thing for everyone.”  
  
“I don’t want to,” I crossed my arms and slumped in my chair. I was done with being reasonable now that it looked like no one was going to be looking out for me but me.  
  
“You are a minor, correct, you don’t get to make that choice.” Agent Heyerdahl cracked and some of his true personality showed. In the future he turned out to be a not so very nice man as you can guess from this interaction.  
  
“Are you threatening my son?” Dad stood up and leaned over the table towards Agent Heyerdahl and he sounded mad. Like, I’m going to beat the shit out of you any moment, mad.  
  
“Not at all, Mr. Ackles, I am just pointing out that at his age he might not see how much this arrangement could benefit him.” Agent Heyerdahl tried for placating but I thought he sounded patronizing.  
  
My parents and the rest of the group must have thought so, too, because Mom stood up and grabbed my arm and gently pulled until I uncrossed my arms and stood up. Everyone else stood up after me and Mr. Browne put his briefcase on the table.  
  
“I think we are done here,” my dad said. “Thank you for the offer but I think we’ll have to decline.” He addressed the agents. “If Jensen’s not under arrest?” He looked to Chief Beaver who shook his head “then we are taking Jensen home.” he looked to JD.  
  
“Of course,” JD answered. “I’ll have your things and any assignments collected for you and your friend, Chris, could be persuaded to bring them by I’m sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.” JD didn’t mention my detention at all and I was thankful.  
  
“Thank you for your services and getting to us so quickly.” Dad turned to Mr. Browne last. “I’ll call you later to settle everything if that’s alright?”  
  
“Of course, Mr. Ackles, call me at your earliest convenience.” Mr. Browne reached out to shake dad’s hand.  
  
“If you change your mind here are is our card.” Agent Heyerdahl took two cards from his pocket and slid them along the table towards my parents and Mr. Browne.  
  
“I don’t think we will.” My dad didn’t take a card and Mom didn’t either.  
  
“If you need to get in touch-” I was happy to notice he didn’t use the word want. ”With the Ackles, please do so through me.” Mr. Browne took out a card of his own and slid it over to the FBI agents. Mr. Browne took one of agent Heyerdahl’s cards but I was sure it was standard practice for him whether he liked someone or not. Contact information could be important in his line of work.  
  
With that Dad waved for Mom to usher me out and Mr. Browne, taking up his recorder, followed us. JD came after him, calling goodbye to us when he reached his office door. Chief Beaver and the FBI followed further behind. We were halfway to the car by the time I saw them exit the building.  
  
None of us talked on the way home and when we got there I went straight to my room and closed the door. I didn’t want to be bothered and I was a little surprised when my mom didn’t follow me. But then again they had a lot to talk about that they might not want me to hear. For a little bit I just laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling but I got bored quickly and decided to read. I had picked up a copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from the library and it would be due back soon. I soon became absorbed in the pages and lost track of time. It was Mom knocking on my door and opening it to tell me that dinner was ready that tore me away from the cat and mouse game of spy vs spy. As I put the book on my night stand my stomach rumbled, angry I had skipped lunch and just now letting me know.  
  
When I got to the dining room Josh and Mac were there already. I had been so absorbed in my book that I hadn’t heard them come home. Mom or Dad or both must have talked to them before hand because neither asked me about the missing day of school. Not that Mac would have known because she goes to a different school but Josh would have known. Or if he didn’t he may have been curious why mom and dad had to leave the restaurant and not come back. I did find out that the restaurant had closed after the lunch crowd for a family emergency as a sign placed on the door proclaimed. Josh had spent his afternoon off enjoying the nice day and seeing a movie. Other than that there wasn’t much talk at the table and dinner was over quickly. When it was and before I could escape to my room again the phone rang. It was Chris and my parents let me take the phone into my room.  
  
“Jensen, what happened today? Are you okay? The whole school is talking about how you got arrested.” Chris didn’t waste time getting into it or telling me that I was the subject of the gossip mill.  
  
I wondered what kinds of things were going to be said about me in the days to come. “I didn’t get arrested and I’m fine.” Thinking about it, I was kind of surprised now that I wasn’t arrested. I had assaulted an FBI agent. I made this comment to Chris since he liked that kind of thing.  
  
“Well, from some accounts, if they can be taken at their word, the guy did grab you. If he didn’t identify that he was law enforcement or whatever you could claim that you were defending yourself against assault.” Chris was correct, he could make a good lawyer if he wanted. “But that still doesn’t explain what they wanted with you.”  
  
I had decided that I was going to tell Chris about my powers sometime and this seemed as good a time as any. So I told him everything. Except for the Jared parts. I wondered if I should or would tell Jared. I supposed if we started dating regularly I might have to, but when was the question. There was silence on the end of the line after I had finished and I wondered if the connection had been lost or Chris had fallen asleep.  
  
“Dude!” Chris finally said rather loudly and excitedly when I thought about hanging up. “You’re an X-man!” Then his voice was hurtful. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? I am your best friend, right?”  
  
“Chris you are one of my only friends and yes, you are my best friend but it’s embarrassing. It’s not a party trick or something you just let slip in casual conversation. Plus, I don’t want people wigging out about me dreaming of kids, it’s creepy and some crazy person might think I’m a pedophile or something. Can you imagine some person coming at me with that?” I shuddered at the thought since in today’s judgmental happy society it could be spread like wildfire in social media and people would believe it to be true even if it wasn’t. It could haunt me for a long time even if I could prove it untruthful.  
  
“That’s gross man, but I see your point” Chris was back to sounding like his normal self. “So are you going to do it again?”  
  
I was confused for a second my mind still on people and social media making me out to be a monster or a freak or worse a pervert. Then I realized he meant if I would try to find more kids. “Probably, but not until this thing with the FBI calms down. I doubt they would like it if I just went out to get another poster tomorrow or something. I want time for them to leave town if they haven’t already.”  
  
“Do you think they’re going to leave so easily?” Chris’s voice was serious and he had to be thinking of something.  
  
“No.” I could wish they would leave right away but knew logically that they might stick around for a bit. “What are you thinking?” Because he had to be thinking something, it was just the way he worked looking at all the angles.  
  
“You said that male agent told you that you didn’t have a choice about going with them. Well, the scary thing is, he might be right. As a minor, you are legally subject to do what a parent or guardian tells you to. And since the government wants you to do something and your parents don’t, but the thing in question involves the law, the safety of children and potentially national security with the military angle, they could petition to get guardianship of you over your parents. They could, in effect, take you away from them and into their custody that way. You wouldn’t have a choice and you would be stuck with them until you turn eighteen and considering you just turned seventeen that is a lot of time to use you as a guinea pig.  
  
I couldn’t speak as Chris laid it out for me and I saw how royally screwed I was. The government could take me away from my family, and I was sure they could do it quickly, and stick me with anyone they wanted and do what they wanted to me. It was anyone’s nightmare and I didn’t think I would be getting much sleep tonight or any night soon. Maybe I wouldn’t use my powers anymore if that was the threat hanging over me for the next year. But that didn’t feel right to me. I had these powers and I could do good with them, as much as I hated to admit agent Heyerdahl was right about that. It was all so depressing I felt that I might cry again. My emotions were being put through the ringer and I was losing control. I hated the feeling.  
  
“Jensen, you there?” Chris’s voice brought me back to the present.  
  
“Yeah,” I sighed, kind of wishing I wasn’t. “Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay I’m tired, (It wasn’t a lie I was tired) and have my stuff ready for me will you.” Chris never had dropped by otherwise I’m sure my parents would have said something. They weren’t too caught up in this to let my homework slide.  
  
“Sure, see you tomorrow.” Chris hung up on his end and I did, too, before taking the phone back to its cradle. While I was out of my room I said goodnight to my parents and Josh, Mac was already in her room for the night. I slept fitfully that night and when the alarm went off I was grumpy and annoyed.  
  
Josh and my parents were up and eating breakfast when I came into the kitchen. They all had to work at the restaurant. Dad had been out to open it early and had come home to get a nap before taking Mom and Josh back with him. Knowing that I had some work to catch up on and that Chris would be at school early, I grabbed some fruit and a muffin to go and headed for the door. I didn’t get far since when I stepped out onto the porch I was met by a crowd of people milling about the front lawn. They all turned towards me as the door shut behind me. We stared at each other for a tense moment, or at least they looked at me and me just looking blankly ahead before they surged forward all clamoring to get my attention. They were reporters. I caught a few fragments of questions and started to panic before the door behind me opened and my dad came out.  
  
“No comment!” he shouted first, followed by the old person’s phrase, “Get off my lawn!” before pulling me inside and slamming the door. He steered me towards the living room as the phone began to ring. “Don’t answer that!” He said as Mom came in, her arm wrapped around Mac. Josh was closing the curtains of all the windows and as he passed the phone he picked it up and put it back down cutting off the call. It started ringing again immediately. Dad put me on the couch before going over to the phone and unplugging it before going into the kitchen to unplug the one in there. Mom and Mac had joined me on the couch and Josh did too once he was done with all the windows. When Dad came back from the kitchen he had a newspaper with him. He laid it open on the coffee table and all of us leaned forward to read the front page.  
  
  
  
**_Small Town Miracle_**  
  
_Local boy gains psychic ability after being touched by the finger of God_

  
_Local teenager Jensen Ackles has caused a stir by finding several missing children alive and well. After being struck by lightning, or the finger of God, according to religious leaders in the area, last month, he has gained the psychic ability to find any missing persons. He has put his new powers to good use locating a handful of missing children who have since been reunited with their parents._  
  
There were pictures of Hope Shavies and her family as well as the picture of Carlos Ramirez from his missing person’s poster. My freshmen school photo was also present. The article went on but my mom had picked up the paper and was shaking it at Dad.  
  
“How could they do this! How did they get the story? Is it even legal to print Jensen’s photo, let alone name him in the article? He’s a minor! I thought you couldn’t do that!? We should sue! What are we going to do?” Mom was getting more and more upset as she went on and she got up and began to pace causing me, Mac and Josh to pull our feet up least they be trampled. Dad had to wait for her to run out of breath before he could answer.  
  
“I don’t know how the paper knows about Jensen but once they had the story there is no way we could stop them from publishing. We just have to hope for now that if we don’t talk to them they will find something else to write about. When they understand that we are not going to cooperate and there is nothing further they can write about, the next news story will take them away. We just have to wait it out until the police get here to make them leave after I get ahold of them and Mr. Browne. I’m sure he can also straighten up the name and photo issue. I’m sure we can also find out who leaked the story and Mr. Browne can help us if there is something we can do. That is all we can do right now. Kids,” he turned to look at us, “you won’t be going to school today. I don’t want you to go outside, try to stay away from the windows until the cops get here. In the meantime, why don’t you go up to your rooms?” It was a kind of order, but sounded like a suggestion with his calm tone of voice. He used to use it on us when we were all younger to get us to do something we didn't want to.  
  
Mac looked scared and Josh hugged her to his side. “Come on, squirt, we can play some games.” Josh hadn’t called Mac a squirt for a least a year and the old endearment seemed to help calm her as he lead her to his room.  
  
I wanted to stay to find out what was going to happen but I knew that Mom and Dad wouldn’t like it. I went off after Josh and Mac thinking of what I could do. I wanted to talk to someone. Well, I wanted to talk to Chris, really. I swear he was a lawyer in a former life, which was why he thought like one. Did I mention he’d thought about being one already? Well, whatever. I also wanted to talk to Jared. To try and explain and see what his reaction was. I didn’t want him to stop liking me just after we really started to get to know each other a bit.  
  
To do either of those I would need a phone and dad had unplugged the house phone. Mom and dad had cell phones which they were most likely using at this very minute to call Mr. Browne and the police. I didn’t have a cell phone, even though I was old enough to have one, it was supposed to come with the driver’s license and Mac sure didn’t have one, but Josh did. It was supposed to be for emergencies and check-ins only but I counted this as an emergency and I knew where he kept it. He’d be busy with Mac and there was no one he’d call to talk about this with. When the bill came next month I would pay for the minutes I’d used. I went to where he kept the backpack he used to carry stuff around like a woman carries a purse and took the phone. Once in my room I turned on my radio keeping it low to help disguise the fact that I was talking to someone and still hear Chris.  
  
He picked up right away with a cautious, “Hello?” As if he wasn’t sure who was on the other end. He didn’t have my brother’s number so I was a little surprised he’d picked up at all and I didn’t have to leave a message for him to call me back.  
  
“Chris, it’s me” I had no doubt he’d know me by my voice so I didn’t say my name like proper manners call for.  
  
“ _Jesus, Jensen!_  Are you okay? I saw the paper and also the local news just ran a clip of you and your dad on TV.” Chris sounded really worried and that wasn’t like him at all. It took a lot to rattle Chris.  
  
I was glad I had told him about my powers last night otherwise I wasn’t so sure I would like to hear his reaction from finding out from the paper or TV. I hadn’t noticed the TV crew when I had been standing on the porch, but then again, I was stunned to see plain old reporters of print news. Okay, to be fair, some of them were from online news media, at least I thought so. “I’m okay but my parents aren’t happy and Mac’s a bit scared. I don’t know how the story got out.”  
  
“I think I might be able to help you with that bit if things are the way I think they are. Coach Lehne has been bragging about talking to some reporters last night about the freak who terrorizes the school. Principal Manners has threatened to fire him if he hears he’s talked to anyone about you as of this morning.” Chris sounds angry now which is right on par for him.  
  
At least now I knew and it’s also likely he gave the reporters my photo too. Although why he picked my freshmen photo is odd, but who knows what goes through his mind when you get him to think about anything but football or any other school sport. “I’m not going to make it to school today but is there any way you could pick me up tomorrow morning?” I didn’t relish the thought of running into any reporters on my way to school. I could see red and blue lights flashing against the curtains and knew the cops had arrived. They hadn’t used their sirens, probably because this wasn’t an emergency and by now they would be doing something about the crowd in front of our house.  
  
“No problem.” Chris didn’t even hesitate at my request. “So what are you going to do now that people know about your power?”  
  
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing.” It would be something for me to think about. I had thought about it just that yesterday, going about picking up missing posters here or there where I saw them and calling Danneel with the addresses.  
  
“Well, you better come up with a plan or something. Maybe get a post office box or something for all the letters and shit.” Chris was trying to be helpful but it only confused me.  
  
“What are you talking about?” I had a sinking feeling in my gut that whatever he said was something important, something I had missed or didn’t think about, not that I had done much thinking about it at all.  
  
“You made the local paper, the local TV, and social media. If the major networks don’t pick it up, even as a fluff side piece, I’d be surprised. Some people are going to not believe a word, a lot of people are going to be interested enough until the next big story comes along but some people are going to latch on to this like stink in a shit house. You are going to get all kinds of letters, postcards, pictures and who knows what kind of objects in the mail from people who will want you to find their missing loved ones. You’ll probably get phone calls, too, and people might come into town to look for you. And that is just the average person. We are in the end of the Bible belt so you’ll probably get a lot of fanatics, too, either praising you as an angel or cursing you as a devil or some such. Let’s not even talk about the UFO nuts or other people claiming to be psychics who will want to work with you. Lastly, you’ll get the grifters trying to work with you or you to work for them or something to run scams. You have some serious thinking to do about the next few days and weeks.” See, trying to be helpful, but what a mind to come up with this stuff! It just freaked me out. I hadn’t thought about any of this!  
  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I was so screwed, not to mention scared. I didn’t need this right now. Whatever happened to just trying to survive high school? Was an average angst filled few teenage years not enough? What had I done wrong in a previous life to deserve this? I wonder if Jared would take me away from all this. What category was Jared likely to fall into in all these options? Would he be accepting, in denial or think I was a nutter trying to run some scam for attention or just plain loony? Would he think the lightning had truly fried my brain? Chris seemed okay, so far, and it gave me some comfort. “I’ll have to come up with a plan and get back to you.”  
  
“Sure, but if you need any more advice just ask. Good luck and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Chris hung up and I was bummed for a second before I figured that he would be late for class since we had talked so long.  
  
I waited in my room, trying to read, but not getting anywhere and started to pace when I realized that I had just read the same page for the third time and didn’t remember what it was I had just finished. I turned off the radio, too, when the DJ started talking about a media story that was picking up posts, tweets, shares and what nots. It was my story. With the radio off I could now hear what was going on in the house. Mom and dad were arguing with someone. I crept out of my room and closer to the voices coming from the kitchen.  
  
“A perimeter has been set up around your house and your neighbor on each side. I’ll have a patrol here to watch it but I only have the men and the budget for two days.” That was Chief Beaver’s voice, I recognized it from yesterday.  
  
“That’s fine, I’m sure we can figure something out should we need to do so after that.” That was Mr. Browne’s voice. “I’m assuming that the school will have a patrolman or two?”  
  
“Yes, they have one on duty, most of the time, anyway. I’ll just add another when Jensen has classes.” Chief Beaver sounded confident but I was unsure. We were a small town and the resources weren’t infinite. The officer he talked about who patrolled the school was old, and about to retire. He mainly just walked about when we were between classes and made sure that the school gate was open and shut when it needed to be.  
  
“Good.” Mr. Browne had no idea about what kind of policeman was 'guarding' the school. “As for now, we are putting out a press release of no comment. We aren’t confirming or denying anything. We did find out the press had two sources for the story and we have been able to silence one. A football coach by the name Fredric Lehne provided the photo of Jensen and he’s one source. We are writing up an action suit for that and he was just served with a gag order. It’s the second source that we don’t know yet that concerns me.” Mr. Browne sounded like he was on top of things and I hoped that he could make everything disappear soon.  
  
“Is it really safe to send the kids to school tomorrow?” My mom sounded worried and even if this were to pass tomorrow, I doubt that she would let us out of her sight much longer then a school day from now until we moved out. She had always been a worrier. Remember when I got struck by lightning in the first place?  
  
“With the patrols here and at the school, plus the lockup on campus, I don’t see why not.” Mr. Browne tried to soothe my mother. “Mackenzie goes to a different school but I wouldn’t worry too much about her. She is a minor and reporters are not likely willing to go to jail and be fined for trying to talk to her. While her campus isn’t locked up, the teachers will be told to keep an eye on her. I am sure she will be fine. Josh and you two are a different matter since you will be at work at your restaurant. However, you stick with the no comment line, and the law says that whoever comes in has to order food if they want to stay and that you have the right to refuse them service if it comes to that.”  
  
“I’ll put up a sign and tell the staff.” Dad sounded revived. What little staff we had had been with us for a long time and weren't likely to talk about us to reporters.  
  
“I think that about covers it for now” Mr. Browne said. “Is there anywhere you need to be today besides work?”  
  
“No, I’m going in but Donna and Josh are staying. My parents will be coming in to help out at the restaurant and I’ll fill them in on everything.” My dad’s voice was getting closer as he talked and I went back into my room. I had just flopped myself on the bed and picked up my book when he stuck his head in.  
  
“Hey, I have to go to the restaurant but I want you to stay here. The reporters have been pushed back but keep the curtains closed just in case okay. I’m going to go say goodbye to Josh and Mac. I’ll see you when I get home.” He went down the hall not waiting for an answer but I figured he didn’t need one. He wasn’t asking anything, he was giving orders and I had no problem following them. When he was gone I tried to read again but got nowhere. By lunch we all decided to watch a movie since all of us were bored. We all gave in to Mac’s pick of the movie to cheer her up. She picked COCO which had just come out recently and despite it being a Disney/Pixar film and very colorful I found it sad and not quite appropriate for the situation I was in. After that I was too depressed to watch anything else so I went to my room and took a nap like a toddler would. When Dad got home he brought leftovers from the restaurant. We didn’t talk much as we ate and I could tell dad was a bit stressed. I wondered how bad it had been at the restaurant.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning when I got ready for school Mom fretted over whether I should go. Chris had managed to be let into the perimeter by the cops and honked for me which made up Mom’s mind. She tried to kiss me on the cheek as I left like I was a little kid but I got away before she could land one on me. I ran to Chris’s truck and he had the door open for me. As soon as I was inside and the door closed he took off. There seemed to be even more reporters then yesterday and I saw three TV news crew vans. I ducked my head as we passed them and when I looked up saw some of them following us in the side mirror. However, they were stopped at the school gates and Chris got to park close to the front of the main doors thanks to a spot being marked off. I supposed it was so we’d be as far from the gates and cameras as possible. Chris said it was so the patrol officer could keep an eye on it.  
  
Classes were hell as kids were whispering or just openly talking about me and everyone stared. I avoided looking at anyone after first period and didn’t talk to or acknowledge anyone either. At lunch I hid out in an empty classroom so I was hungry by the end of the day. I wondered about detention as my last class started. I hadn’t told my parents and mom would want me home as soon as possible. I wanted to see Jared though. Just as class was starting JD poked his head in the door and asked the teacher, Mrs. Bloom, if he could see me. He only took me out of class long enough to say that I didn’t have to report for detention. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad about it. It didn’t matter much later since the next disaster would have happened either way.  At least in my opinion.  
  
Chris and I headed out to the truck soon after the last bell. However, I had tried to catch Jared before he went into detention but he didn’t show and so we were ambushed on the way to the truck. Being as we weren’t the first out the door the school gates had been open for a bit and someone had gotten in. They had used the ruse of a parent picking up a student; they must have looked up a sports player online or in the local paper and been admitted.  
  
The guy had asked me if it hurt to find someone and was that why I hadn’t found more people before shoving a missing person's poster in my face and asking me to tell him where the kid was. Chris tried to get the guy away from me but he had grabbed onto my arm was waving the poster in my face. Even with all the jerking around I was able to do my focus thing and the kid, a little girl was stuck in my mind. I didn’t get to see her name or details but it didn’t matter. Tomorrow I would know her name and address. I didn’t know what I would do though since I was not going to go to school I knew that! But I didn’t want the headache either and I would want the girl to be able to go home. With everyone knowing about my powers it would be safe to call from any phone I wanted. But would the FBI make another visit if I did? They were still watching the Center’s network I had no illusions about that.  
  
The new patrolman had arrived and had wrestled the reporter away from us. Chris grabbed my arm and hustled me into the truck. We sped out of the lot and down the street faster than was posted for the school grounds and I wasn’t worried about the police stopping us. “Are you okay, Jensen? Did he hurt you?” Chris took quick glances at me trying to assess me as he drove.  
  
My clothes were askew and there was a rip in my jacket sleeve but other than that, I was fine physically. Mentally, I wasn’t so sure. I was shaken and nervous about someone manhandling me and not in a good fun way. Also I was anxious about the girl in the poster. “I’m okay, he just…” I wanted to say scared me but didn’t want to admit it to Chris. “I’m going to dream about that girl.” I changed the subject to get it off of me. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about either but there wasn’t much else at that very second.  
  
“ _Damn!_ ” Chris banged his hand against the steering wheel and I knew he was really upset if he was willing to abuse his truck even a little. “I don’t mean to pry, but does it hurt? When you dream about those kids?” He sounded sorry but I knew it’s something he’d worry about if I don’t tell him and he’ll spot the lie if I try.  
  
“No, not when I dream of them,” I told him the truth. Or rather, part of it.  
  
“Buuutttt….” Chris drew out the word, sensing that I indeed wasn't telling him the whole truth.  
  
“If I don’t tell anyone the address I start to get a headache. It gets worse the longer I wait and I don’t know if anything worse will happen if I don’t tell at all. I’ve never waited longer than a day and a half and I don’t plan to find out what happens next.”  I avoided looking at him and he blew out a frustrated breath.  
  
“So who are you going to call tomorrow?” He took his longest look at me yet, as if trying to guess.  
  
“The Center of course, who else?” It’s the obvious answer and I glanced at him to see if he was joking.  
  
“The FBI for one, I’m sure they’d be over the moon.” Chris sounded sarcastic and I knew it was because of how I had described them to him.  
  
“I hadn’t even considered them but I don’t want to talk to them at all. The lady who answers the phone at the Center, Danneel, I like her. Or her voice anyway, she sounds nice.” At this I got a stare that had me yelling at him. “Watch the road!”  
  
“I thought you had the hots for that bad boy Jared,” it wasn’t a question but I could hear the interest. He’d probably like it if I never talked to Jared again.  
  
“I do like Jared,” I affirm. “I’d like to actually talk to him sooner rather the later.” Chris knows that’s why he had to wait for me at school after the last bell. “We’re just starting to get to know each other and I don’t want him to bug out on me over this. I know it’s petty but I want him to be okay with me now that I’m a freak." (Yes, again with the negative putdowns.)  
  
“Hey, you are not a freak!” Chris always jumps to my defense even when it’s me against myself. “If he can’t accept it or put it aside, then he was never really that into you and doesn’t deserve a chance with you. Not that I like him, but you do, and in the end that’s what matters even if I don’t like it.”  
  
I smiled at that and it made me feel better. “I’m not going to go to school tomorrow so you don’t need to pick me up. I think I’m going to beg off until this thing blows over.” I had no idea how long that would be or if my parents would even approve. I was sure I could get away with another missed day or two, but not for longer than that.  
  
“I’ll bring you the assignments from class. I’m sure JD will call your parents and they’ll work something out. They’d be upset if you fell behind” Chris knows not only me, but my parents well.  
  
When we reached my house he told me he’d call and I went inside to be met by Mom, Dad and Mr. Browne. They heard about the reporter who got onto the school campus. They had tried to talk to Mac’s teachers, too, but luckily, they left Mac alone. I got permission to stay home until the next week and, yes, I would have to get homework assignments to keep up. I told them that I would have to call the Center tomorrow, that I got a good look at the reporter’s missing poster. Mr. Browne didn’t question my decision on who I was going to call.  
  
That night I slept soundly but Mac had a nightmare that sent her to sleep with my parents for the first time in years. In the morning I knew that Rebecca Reid was in Idaho and my parents consider moving us there to get out of the spotlight.  
  
When I call the Center, Danneel picks up. “Jensen, is that you?”  
  
“You know who I am?” I really shouldn’t be surprised but I am.  
  
“You are kind of all over the news right now, and those FBI agents called. I’m not a fan, by the way, they’re kind of rude.” Her answer made me smile. “How are you doing?” She asks before I can give her Rebecca’s address.  
  
“I’m doing okay but I’m stuck at home while reporters are camped out up the block.” I won’t burden her with what is happening in great detail.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she says it like it’s her fault.  
  
“Thanks,” I say and I mean it. It isn’t her fault really, not personally anyway. “I have a name and an address,” and I give them to her.  
  
“Thank you, Jensen, I’m sure her family will be grateful to you for finding her.” She sounded grateful and happy and I knew what I was going to say next might take that away.  
  
“Look, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to call again. I’m kind of lying low, for now. I know that finding kids is good and all, but I need to get back some kind of normalcy.” I tried to make her understand but I didn’t want her to be angry or disappointed. She’s just a voice over the phone but it’s one I liked and so, by extension, I like her.  
  
“I understand, Jensen, it’s okay. You take care of yourself and when you call again I’ll be here. At least when it’s not my day off.” she didn’t sound angry and that made me relax. I didn’t know I’d tensed up.  
  
“I hope to talk to you again soon.” It’s the truth I hang up with.  
  
That day it’s just me and Mom until about lunch time when Mac’s principal calls. A reporter tried to talk to Mac and the school is being flooded with calls. Mom has to go pick Mac up and they stay together in Mac’s room, Mom reading to her until she falls asleep. Dad and Josh get home late from the restaurant because it was packed with people. It’s good for the business but they had to stay in the back to avoid reporters and people showing up who want to ask me to find their loved ones and one preacher who wanted to come and pray over me. None of us sleep well that night.  
  
In the morning a reporter has gotten through the patrol perimeter and is trying to talk to us and take pictures through the windows. They already know I’ve found another missing kid. There are national news reporters and TV crews now. Everyone is staying home today and the house is filled with tension.  
  
The real shit hits the fan that afternoon when the mail arrives. There are at least two dozen letters from people in the surrounding states and after Mom and Dad open the first few, all of which are asking me to find someone they pile them up and leave them by the front door. They have to call the post office and tell the postmaster to only bring bills to the house. They’re forced to rent a post office box so that the letters coming in have a place to go until they can be sorted and sent back to their original owners. Our lives are now a zoo, the restaurant is going to suffer without Mom and Dad there to run it, Mac is terrified and it’s all my fault. I close myself in my room to think and come up with a decision that my parents won’t like but seemed best at the time. I would come to regret it soon enough (not that I knew it at the time I made the decision. Hindsight and all that crap.)  
  
“I’m going to go to the F.B.I. research lab,” I tell my family and Mr. Browne, who I asked my parents to call over to the house. We were all gathered in the living room which was dim even with all the lamps switched on due to the blinds and curtains being closed to stop anyone taking photos of us. It also muffled the noise of all the reporters outside with said cameras.  
  
Everyone started talking at once to protest, even Mac, and the tangle of voices was loud and confusing. It only got worse as everyone raised their voices to be heard over everyone else. Telling them to stop or quiet down didn’t help as my voice only got lost in the mass of noise. Finally sticking my fingers in my mouth I let out a loud piercing whistle like the kind you use for far away dogs or at camp. It worked and everyone shut up. They didn’t look too pleased to be interrupted but that was tough luck.  
  
“Please let’s talk about this with inside voices” I used the term mom loved to shout at us when we, the kids, were shouting at each other for whatever reason in the house. Before they could start talking again and we had a repeat of shouting to be heard I pointed to dad, “You first.”

  
“Jensen, you can’t go to the government just because of a few reporters” he started but he was cut off by mom.  
  
“A few! I counted no less than twenty yesterday when I had to yell at them to stay off the lawn and not to crush my flower garden.” Mom had the front of the yard lined with flowerbeds instead of a fence. She enjoyed working on it when she had time and one year had entered some flowers she’d grown in the local fair. She hadn’t won but she had enjoyed compliments from neighbors and regular customers to the restaurant who had seen them.  
  
“Okay it’s a bit of a crowd but it can’t last, something else will come along like it always does and they’ll go to cover that. Especially if we ignore them and they have nothing to report.” Dad spoke quickly to stop mom from going on about the flowers. Or maybe that she had been paying attention to just how big their problem was with them.  
  
“It might and it might not,” Mr. Browne cut in next. “Also it might not be just the reporters.” Everyone looked at him then and he cleared his throat and looked a bit uncomfortable. This look on a lawyer is not a good sign, by the way, when confronted with a person or persons who have done nothing wrong. “There are people in town who want to hire Jensen to find their missing loved ones or just missing people. So far they have been advised to stay away but I don’t doubt that there are one or two in the crowd beyond the reporters.”  
  
It was true there were rubberneckers who passed by the house or watched the reporters to just see what all the fuss was about. I hadn’t given any thought to these people previously.  
  
“Then there is a religious group coming. Their pastor or leader or whatever they call him contacted the pastor of your church. Your pastor advised this man and his flock not to come but I’m afraid that they are anyway. There is also the possibility of protesters if the media doesn’t leave you alone in the next day or two.”  
  
“Protesters about what?” I couldn’t think of anything anyone could or would protest concerning me or what I could do.  
  
“Could be anything, so I honestly can’t answer that. But a guess would be something about rights of some kind, that is always a favorite topic. Or protesters of the church should they come, someone is always protesting against some religion or another or just to spite them. It could become a real mess if something isn’t done to shift the attention away from you.” Mr. Browne looked apologetic as he explained what could be a nightmare come to life.  
  
I hadn’t thought about any of this and now here is was. The worst part was that even if I decided I could handle it, ignore it till everything went away, my family couldn’t. I had put them in this terrible position. I had been thinking of how good I was doing and how good I was feeling about finding the missing kids. I didn’t think about how they would feel. Even for a second, when I thought about how freaky my new power was, I didn’t think about how they would react, good or bad. I hadn’t thought of them at all and now…Mac was scared and having nightmares and might need therapy someday without intervention into ongoing events. Mom’s flowerbed was being ruined (it was a pretty sure bet) and she would have a hard time looking after Mac. Dad and Josh couldn’t work and the business would suffer and that would be very bad for everyone. It only strengthened my resolve to go to the lab and get out of the reporters reach. I think my family knew it too but they would still but up a protest, that was what a loving family did.  
  
“Jensen, sweetheart, you shouldn’t feel pressured into doing something you’re not comfortable doing,” Mom spoke softly and with concern. It sounded a little bit like when she had tried to give me the sex talk when I was thirteen. That was not a pretty picture for comparison but it was what popped into my head. That had been a very uncomfortable talk, too, since I was just figuring out which gender I liked better and was not about to tell her that her and societies automatic assumptions about my sexuality were wrong.  
  
“I might not want to but it might be a good idea.” I tried to pacify her concern. “Those FBI agents were right about one thing, we have no idea how this is affecting me internally and our doctor isn’t the best equipped. I’m not saying I think something is wrong,” I added the last bit when the look of concern on mom’s face moved towards fear as did dad’s, “But it would be a good thing to know.”  
  
“When would you go?” Dad asked, knowing that I had made up my mind.  
  
“I don’t know. I’d have to call them first but the sooner the better probably.” I looked at Mr. Browne then. He was the one who would have the contact information. Also, I wanted to know what he’d say from a legal angle if there was one.  
  
“I suggest that we do a conference call so that all interested parties can be included. I also suggest that you hold off going until at least tomorrow or the next day so that third parties such as other family, the school and law enforcement can be notified and arrangements made for your absence. You’ll need to negotiate how long you will be there, education procedures if it’s going to be more than a few days, housing and transportation. I advocate that one of your parents go with you to see the facility before you agree to stay and make sure that any and all terms you agreed to are in place and adhered to.” As he outlined what we should do he opened his briefcase and shuffled things around until he found the contact card Agent Heyerdahl had given out. There was a general number on it and both his name and that of his partner Agent Carroll.  
  
I wondered who would answer the phone and if it was an office number. If it was a cell number wouldn’t there be two of them? Did they share a cell phone? I pondered this and if I would get to talk much as mom took Mac up to her room and had Josh follow to watch her so she could be with me and dad when Mr. Browne set up the call. We would be using his cell phone since our house phone was still unplugged and mom and dad had turned theirs off when reporters had started calling them. I decided that any talking I would do would be to Agent Carroll, Agent Heyerdahl could piss off for all I cared. I figured that I had the upper hand at this little negotiation considering I had something they wanted. In the end I hardly did any talking, that was left to Mr. Browne and dad. I talked briefly to Agent Carroll and just said yes I agreed with what they were planning.  
  
The plan was this. I would go to the lab with Dad to have a look around the day after tomorrow. If everything was satisfactory I would stay for a week and if things hadn’t calmed down by then, one more week, bringing it to two weeks total at Hotel Government. I would get a full medical and psychological exam the first day and at the end of the week. I would be monitored daily for health and I’d have a brain scan for the first three days and while I slept to map out what was going on in my new and improved super-charged brain. If I stayed two weeks I’d have more exams at the end of that week too. I would be housed in a small studio like apartment that was to be converted for me. It would be closest to the housing for government and military families since the lab was shared with a military base. It was the closest lab I was willing to travel to being just four hours from home rather than a lab further away that was suggested by Agent Heyerdahl. I would have a tutor when I wasn’t busy with tests or whatever they wanted me to do. I would be paid for my time as if I were working a full time minimum wage job to compensate for me not working at our family restaurant. This was nice because I only worked there part time and not for minimum wage. Plus, even with me not working, the reporters and people coming into town would help bring in extra business until things settled down so I could keep a bit of this money myself.  
  
I went back to my room after that to pack for my trip so I wasn’t present for the conversations with JD about the school I’d miss. Chief Beaver was to tell him I was leaving and that the police could call off the extra guard soon and a message for my grandparents, although I didn’t understand why they needed to know or why they would care. Dad called the restaurant to arrange a new work schedule that allowed him to be away. Mom would go in and so would Josh, and Mac was excused one more day of school and would stay with Mom. Mac probably wouldn’t have to work since she was a bit young and she was so stressed but Mom wouldn’t want her too far away. That being done there wasn’t anything left to do and I was sure to get bored. Before Mr. Browne left to go work with other clients he let me use his phone to call Chris and beg him to come over after school. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to see Jared. Chris would be my escape.  
  
I spent most of the day with Mac and Mom watching movies or reading rediscovering Harry Potter which Mac hadn’t read before. She’d seen the first few movies and now she had the time to read the books. Josh had ventured out with Dad to go to the restaurant to make sure that any paperwork was filled out before Dad and I left and to do the food orders. With the extra business going on they’d need more than usual and Dad had to sign off on it all and call our vendors to change our usual order. I avoided thinking about what my time might be like at the lab.  
  
Chris thankfully showed up half an hour after school would have been out. The police knew who he was so they let him come up to the house. When I greeted him at the door, careful not to let the reporters outside see me, I could see that the perimeter had been pushed back even further and that there were even more people and cars on the street as well as cops. In fact there was the uniform of the county sheriff as well as our city cops and some of the neighboring town.  
  
“What’s up with the reporters?” I asked since I had no idea, being shut in since yesterday.  
  
“You’re national news now, my friend,” Chris dug into his backpack and pulled out a newspaper and a magazine and handed them to me to look at while he took off his shoes.  
  
The paper was the New York Times and I wondered where he got it since I know his family doesn’t subscribe. I was on the second page and the article looked a lot like the one from the local paper a few days ago. The magazine was Time and there was a paper bookmark. The magazine had a half page column about me. Again, I saw a lot of familiar stuff as I skimmed it. Next to it, however, was an article about Jenny Mitchell. The dead girl. I didn’t read it, not yet, I’d save it for later when I was alone.  
  
“Some of the families of the missing kids you found are talking, so you’re national news now” Chris said as we moved to my room. “Also there are a few people with signs of some kind, I didn’t get a good look at what they said but the person corralling them is dressed as a preacher, white collar and all.”  
  
“Shit.” I sit heavily on my bed and Chris joined me. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m going away for a bit,” and I told Chris all about my upcoming week as a paid lab rat. When I was done he didn’t look happy at all.  
  
“Are you an idiot or something? You’re willing to let them lock you up and experiment on you?” Chris sounded angry and scared even if he won’t admit the latter feeling. “They could do anything to you and you wouldn’t be able to get help for a week.”  
  
“I’ll have my own little apartment and a phone and free range of the base when I’m not working or doing whatever they want to test and what not.” I felt a little defensive from being thought of and called an idiot. Mr. Browne did help in coming up with this plan and my dad will look over the place before I decided to stay. “Besides it’s only until the reporters go away or a week or two whichever comes first.”  
  
“Why don’t you just tell everyone you’ve lost your powers? They’d all go away in a hurry I’d bet.” Chris sounded defensive now. Like he saw the point I’m making but didn’t want to admit it or that I might be right.  
  
“I could but then what happens when I need to call Danneel, the girl at the missing kids’ center line again? I know at some point I’ll see some pictures of someone missing and then I’ll be stuck hurting if I don’t tell someone. Even If I’m extra careful I would think that someone, the government especially would notice that kids were being found out of the blue on occasion. It got out once, what’s to stop it from happening again and how much bigger would the mess be if I got caught lying about it?” If felt like this time I was the logical thinker, like our places have been reversed. Not too long ago I was asking him for advice and now the shoe is on the other foot even if he didn’t ask me for it. He just grunted at this and I guessed maybe he had thought about it but didn’t think much of it. “On a totally different topic can I borrow your cell phone?” I wanted to get off the depressing topic of my leaving and get on with my own private preparations for leaving. Mainly talking to Jared and seeing where we stood.  
  
“I don’t have it.” Chris sounded very uncomfortable and didn’t look at me when he admitted this.  
  
“You don’t have it?” I was surprised. Even if Chris was grounded or had certain privileges restricted he would have his cell phone whenever he drove anywhere. It was a rule in his family. In case anything happened and he needed help or was going to be late for any reason he was to call home or someone. I tried to process this while staring at him but he wouldn’t look at me. Something was very wrong and I couldn’t figure it out. “Why don’t you have it?” I sounded almost accusing, of what I didn’t know or why for that matter but it must have done the trick because Chris finally looked at me.  
  
“People started calling me to ask about you.” He sounded a bit angry.  
  
“Reporters you mean.” I almost winced. The fact that they plagued our lines of communication so badly wasn’t surprising but to go after my friend? If they were calling Chris enough that he had left his phone behind, and probably turned off, who else were they calling? Was everyone with a close connection to me and/or my family getting calls? Were some of those people answering those calls?  
  
“Look it’s not too bad, it’s just annoying.” Chris tried to reassure me but I could see that he was lying. “Who do you want to call anyway? I assumed you could call that missing kids line from any phone now.”  
  
Now it was my turn to hesitate and hedge. “Just a friend.” I hoped Jared was more than a friend but at this point in time I could be just the freak he knew and made out with at this point. I really needed to talk to him about what was going on and how he felt.  
  
“You mean that Jared guy, right?” Chris nailed it on the head. “You want to call him and what? Tell him to wait for you? Would he even answer your call right now?”  
  
The last bit stung a little as he inferred that Jared wouldn’t want to talk to me. And maybe he didn’t, I had no way of knowing what he was feeling. Chris was also right on another level about Jared answering the phone. I had the number of a pay phone at the garage where he worked sometimes. I had no idea if it would be answered if I called it or, if it was answered, if Jared would be working or would want to talk if he was working. My plan had many flaws but it was the only one I had. We sat in silence for a moment before I thought of something else. “You could drive me to the garage he works at and I could talk to him face to face.”  
  
“You want me to drive you to a place he might be at to maybe talk to him if he doesn’t leave or have you ejected from the property?” Chris sounded disbelieving like he wasn’t sure of what I had just said.  
  
“Look I need to talk to him okay. I know you don’t like him but I do. I want to see how things stand okay, it means a lot to me.” I tried not to be angry at him or sad about how pitiful I must sound, like some old fashioned woman in a bodice ripper who needed her man.  
  
“If you need to see him that bad why don’t you just go to his house? It’s getting late and I bet he’d be there rather than at some garage.” Chris sounded like he was humoring me but the points he made were logical. Good old Chris and his sound reasoning skills.  
  
“I don’t know where he lives,” I admitted and looked away from him.  
  
There was more silence and it was getting uncomfortable when Chris finally said. “I do.” It sounded resigned and I looked back at him in disbelief. “What? Don’t look at me like that.”  
  
“How do you know where Jared lives?” I couldn’t think of a reason why, they didn’t live close to each other and I was sure Chris would have said something otherwise.  
  
“When you went out on your second date I talked to Steve who knows a guy who finds out stuff. I wanted to make sure I knew where to go to find him if he hurt you.” Chris didn’t seem at all ashamed of this.  
  
“Whatever your reasons I’ll forgive you if you take me to see him.” I had already forgiven Chris but he didn’t need to know that. I understood in a weird way what he had done. If he had started dating someone I didn’t like who had a bad rap and who was bigger and stronger then Chris I might have done the same thing.  
  
“Right, and how am I supposed to do that? There is a horde of reporters and protesters and nutcases at the end of your block. My truck has windows you know and they’ll be able to see you. I highly doubt you’ll have a meaningful conversation with lover boy surrounded by all those people.” Chris was being reasonable again but I had a solution.  
  
“I’ll sneak out the back and go across Mr. Bartle’s yard and meet you out front on the next block.” Mr. Bartle lived behind us and if you went through our backyard and his, past his house and into his front yard you would be on a block parallel to ours but unseen by anyone from our side. The reporters wouldn’t be anywhere near it.  
  
“Now I  _know_  the lightning did something bad to mess you up. Are you crazy? Do you want to be shot?” Chris had sat up straight and was looking at me as if I had grown a second head.  
  
Mr. Bartle was a Vietnam vet with PTSD and an assortment of other mental ailments. He was constantly vigilant and slightly paranoid. He didn’t like people coming to his house or being on his lawn, and he was sure to freak at anyone on his back lawn. He was known on very rare occasion to come tearing out of his house waving a gun at people who trespassed on his property. The cops had been called to his house many times and a few attempts had been made to take his gun away, but since he had never actually shot at anyone and mostly shouted from his porch, the gun was probably unloaded.Still everyone kept well clear of his yard. I suddenly wondered why he hadn’t caused trouble for the reporters yet. “I think I’ll be okay, he might not even be home. He hasn’t come out for the reporters after all,” I stated my weak case.  
  
Chris was still looking at me like I was crazy but I could see him mulling this over. “If I say no, you’re still going to try to go and see him aren’t you?” It was a statement, not a question and I nodded. “Fine but if we get caught and in trouble, I’m throwing you under the bus and blaming you for everything.”  
  
That was how, half an hour later, we were driving through the main part of town in the direction of the poorer section that was known by everyone as the wrong side of the tracks even though there were no said tracks. In a large city it would be the wrong part of town, or the seedier parts. Whatever you wanted to call it didn’t change the fact that was a place most people didn’t want to go.  
  
Chris tried to ask me again if I was sure about seeing Jared a few times before he came to a stop at the address Steve’s mysterious guy had given him. The house or rather small mobile home was just a step up from being a trailer house. The paint was old and faded but not peeling and the roof sagged in places. One of the windows in front was cracked and patched with what looked like tape. The porch that once upon a time must have been there was gone but the place it had been remained discolored. There were concrete blocks as steps to the door now instead. Next to the house was a leaning cover for a car that looked like a stiff breeze would knock it over, but the lawn was mowed and there were flowers along the base of the home along both sides of the steps. Under the leaning cover there was an old faded and beat up looking car which must belong to Jared’s family and Jared’s motorcycle. Jared was home unless he had walked somewhere.  
  
“Do you want me to come in?” Chris asked as he looked the house over as much as I was.  
  
“No, I want to talk to him in private.” I got ready to get out of the car but Chris stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.  
  
“I’m going to wait here for you, if you need anything just shout for me, okay?” he rolled down his window with his free hand.  
  
I didn’t think it would be necessary but I nodded. “Sure and thanks.” I slipped out from under his hand and out of the truck. As I walked to the front door I could hear Chris turn the engine off. He was in for a long wait if I got my way. I would need a lot of time to work things out with Jared if he even let me in. I knocked on the door and hoped that I wasn’t about to be humiliated by being asked to leave. It took a minute for someone to answer the door and when it opened it was only a crack with a safety chain keeping the door secure. A woman’s face appeared in the crack and looked me over.  
  
“I’m looking for Jared,” I said giving the woman a smile but not introducing myself.  
  
The door shut and I was beginning to frown when I heard the door chain rattling and the door opened again almost all the way. The interior of the house was dim but I could see the woman clearly enough. She must be Jared’s mom because she looked like him with brown hair and hazel eyes and a slight cleft to her chin. Jared didn’t have her nose so that must be his fathers. I tried not to stare to long though because she had a very noticeable scar running down her left cheek from just under her eye to her jaw. The nose looked as if had been broken once, too, and not set right as was slightly crooked with a bump at the top bridge. When I had stepped inside she closed the door and it took my eyes a second to adjust to the gloom of the house.  
  
“Jared’s out back, Jensen.” Jared’s mom waved towards the opposite side of the room to another door.  
  
“You know who I am?” I was surprised that Jared would tell his mother about me, much less describe me.  
  
“Honey, most of Texas probably knows who you are by now.” She gave me a thin smile and shuffled towards the living room in front of us. I noticed she had a limp and that was likely what took her so long to answer the door.  
  
For a second I felt like an idiot. Of course, she would know who I was, I was the talk of the town. My picture had been in the papers and was probably on the internet and TV, too. I was too embarrassed to say anything, so instead, I made my way to the back door. It was just outside the living room and into the small kitchen. An odd place for a door, but I had never been in a mobile home this small so I didn’t know if it was normal. This door also had a chain lock but it wasn’t in use and the handle turned smoothly in my grip. The steps leading out to the back were the same as the ones in the front and so were the flowers to either side. Jared was a good fifteen feet from the door next to a makeshift table of two saw horses and a wooden plank. The table was covered in parts and half an engine of some kind. His hands and arms were covered in grease and there was a smear on his forehead. He didn’t look too pleased to see me.  
  
  
  
“What are you doing here? How did you even find me?” He sounded a little angry but not like he was about to kick my ass or kick me off his property.  
  
“Hi,” was all I could think to say to that while I worked out how to make him un-mad. It was not what he had expected to hear because he raised an eyebrow at me. When I didn’t say anything else he sighed and pulled a rag from his back pocket to wipe his hands.  
  
“Let’s sit.” He waved to my left and I looked over to see two plastic deck chairs along the side of the house close to the corner. I had no idea why they were all the way over there but I went to sit anyway. As long as Jared was willing to talk I’d sit anywhere he told me to.  
  
“So? Talk,” he instructed once we were sitting.  
  
“Um, I’m not sure where to start,” I admitted since I hadn’t thought about what I might actually say. I had been so focused on just getting to Jared to talk to him I hadn’t thought about the actual talking. I knew I wanted to tell him a little about what I could do. I also wanted to tell him about me going away for a week or two. And I wanted to know if he still liked me at all.  
  
Apparently I had waited too long, so he started without me. “How about the fact that you have some kind of psychic power? Or the fact that you were using me as a chauffeur?” He sounded even angrier then he had a minute ago and was glaring at me, his body rigid in his chair.  
  
“I wasn’t using you as a chauffeur!” I started and he snorted at this, rolling his eyes. “I may have made some calls to a certain hotline while I was out with you, but that was not why I  _went_  out with you. I like you, Jared. I like you very much and I had a great time with you. And yes, I did report some information I got using my powers, but I would have called in what I knew regardless of if I was with you or not. I would have gotten Chris to take me someplace with a payphone if we didn’t go to a place with one. I was killing two birds with one stone.”  
  
Now that I had started, it looked like I couldn’t stop.  
  
“In fact, if you must know I almost canceled our first date with you because of my powers. I was hurting because of them and when I used the payphone you took me to I stopped hurting. You did me a favor in more ways than one taking me to a payphone that day. If I hadn’t gone with you I would have found another way I’m sure but that date helped me in ways I can’t explain because I don’t even know myself.”  
  
Jared was staring at me now. I went on. “It was never really about the payphones. If I didn’t have these powers I would still have gone on those dates with you. I may have picked a different place for that first date though. I loved getting to have a picnic with you out in that swamp. I’d go again tomorrow if you asked me to and we could skip the payphone. As for the powers part, I didn’t tell anyone about them. Like I said a minute ago, they came after the lightning. I didn’t know what to do about them at first and then I did want you to think I was making things up, going mental or a freak. I never even intended for anyone to know at all but the FBI coming to town kind of spoiled those plans. I wanted to talk to you that next day, but I didn’t see you. I even got accosted by some reporter after I waited for you, not that it’s your fault or anything,” I added hastily when he stiffened.  “And now with all the reporters around I haven’t left the house since then. I came as soon as I could to have this talk with you. Please don’t be mad at me for something I can’t control because I can’t stop how my power works and honestly it’s a bit scary. It can hurt, too, and it’s causing problems for my whole family. I don’t want it to cause problems between us because I would really,  _really_ , love to have another date with you.” I had just about talked myself horse and my anxiety was sky high as I riled myself up inside with how I was making a mess of explaining via verbal diarrhea. I just wanted, no  _needed_ , him to understand. I was breathing a bit rapidly as I tried to calm myself and wait for his reply.  
  
Jared didn’t speak for so long I thought he wasn’t going to at all. My eyes had started to fill with tears and I was ready to leave so he wouldn’t see how hurt I was.  
  
When he did speak, his voice was flat, almost emotionless and very serious. He didn’t look at me and I thought that while he might have been talking to me he envisioned in his head so he could ignore the fact that I was sitting right next to him. Maybe it was easier on him that way, but it wasn’t easy for me.  
  
“Everyone has secrets,” Jared began, “Be they big or small and its human nature not to want to share those secrets. Your powers are the big kind of secret and the fact that they are so new and not an ordinary thing can be scary. Not wanting to tell anyone, I can understand. I don’t think you’re a freak for that. I believe in mediums, not that I’d ever want to talk to one. I would guess that their power isn’t much different from yours except that you find the living and not the dead. The fact that it causes you pain isn’t a small thing, either.” He leaned closer, his elbows on his knees and actually looked at me. “I’m glad that I was able to take you to a place that you could unburden that pain even if I wished you had done so without it being on our date. It may be selfish of me and sound crass but I had hoped that you were there just to be with me, not…” Here he paused, looking for the right words. “Not with the kids or memory of them or whatever it is that allows you to know where they are. I feel a bit cheated that it wasn’t just me you were thinking of when we were together. You did a good thing by letting the authorities know where they were. I just wish you hadn’t done so with me in tow.” He sat back and stared at the floor for a moment, then sighed and looked me straight in the eye. “I do like you, Jensen, and I’m glad you like me, too, but I don’t think I can see you again. Not with all the reporters and police hanging around. I’m sorry.” He actually did sound regretful.  
  
“By why? It’s not like they’ll be around forever!” I sounded sulky, like a child who has been told they can’t have what they want and are about to have a tantrum. “What does it matter? Afraid being seen with me might ruin your reputation?” Now I was just being nasty because I  _wasn’t_  going to get what I wanted.  
  
He gave a sardonic smile that marred his handsome face and made it look ugly and a little sinister. “No but I might ruin yours.” I had nothing to say to that, I was too shocked. “How old are you precisely?” Jared’s question threw me off guard.  
  
“Seventeen and two months give or take a few days that I can’t do the math on at the moment,” I stammered trying to think of what my age had to do with anything.  
  
“Well that’s fine now since you are legally over the age of consent to date someone a year older than you but what if someone decides to say we’ve been going on dates longer? What if someone says we’ve been having sex? It’s statutory rape at sixteen but it could swing either way at seventeen and eighteen, it’s up to the judge in the end with how close we are in age and to the legal adult age.” His voice was still flat and it was beginning to scare me. Looking at me now, his gaze is flat too, that was the only way I could describe it, as if there is no emotion or life in them. My cheeks and neck on the other hand have lots of life as they burned and turned red with embarrassment.  
  
“Bbb...uutttt we…we ha-haven’t!” I stutter. “Why would anyone say that?” I was sure I was very red by now.  
  
“Because they can, and we can’t prove otherwise. It’s not like you have a hymen that a doctor can check, as barbaric as that would be. It would be their word against ours and mine doesn’t count for much.” Jared was so still and calm as he spoke. I had to focus on his mouth to make sure was really him talking and not my imagination saying this to me in his voice.  
  
“Why not?” I was afraid to know but I needed to at the same time. Jared was a good person with a bad reputation but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t trustworthy. There was something else between us besides my newly reviled powers.  
  
“As long as we are airing secrets I guess it’s time you knew one of mine. You might have found out later if I never told you, someone else might have. Did you know that I was convicted of attempted murder with adequate justification?” Jared stares right into my eyes and I have to turn away from his gaze.  
  
I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it but the way he said it and the way I could see the truth in his eyes before I had to turn away meant I couldn’t deny it. How was it possible that I had never heard of this? How was it that Jared could even sit here talking to me about it? He’d been in high school for all three years I had been there, so he didn’t do any jail time or I wouldn’t have seen him. His reputation didn’t include murder or attempted murder if you want to get technical. I’m sure I would have heard about that. Chris doesn’t seem to know either and he’s savvy to all the gossip. Unless he does and never told me. But that doesn’t make any sense because if he knew he wouldn’t let me date Jared no matter what.  
  
“Who was it?” I thought that was the most important question. If I knew who, maybe I could figure out the why without asking. No use in asking why when I didn’t know the victim, it would never make sense. Not that it did now.  
  
“My father,” Jared replied, his voice still emotionless and it was creepy.  
  
Knowing the who did not help with figuring out the why and I had a strong feeling I really didn’t want to know, but I asked anyway.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“That’s a secret for another time, I think” Jared seemed to come back to life a little. “The point being, it wouldn’t be good for either of us if you were seen hanging out with me. I don’t want to get you into trouble and I don’t want to  _be_  in trouble.” Jared sat back wearily, his body going boneless and his head tilting back, eyes closing. “I will miss you, though, the possibility of what we could have been.” He said,  dismissing a future that we both wanted without a fight.  
  
I don’t know what came over me, even now, but I just acted on impulse. I got out of my chair and sat in his lap, straddling him, knees wedging into his hips. His eyes snapped open as his head flew up and I bent forward to kiss him. It was a hard kiss, lips mashed together so hard I’m surprised they didn’t split, our teeth clacking together from the force. We stayed that way as time seemed to slow before speeding back up into the present. Jared grabbed my arms just below my shoulders and pushed me back enough that I slid to the end of his thighs.  
  
“What are you doing?” He didn’t sound mad, mostly alarmed at my actions.  
  
“I don’t care about your record, you aren’t in jail so it couldn’t have been that bad and you said there was adequate justification so I’m going to say it wasn’t your fault. As for the FBI and the police, I don’t care or the reporters either. I want to date you Jared. I’m going to go away for a while, just till the reporters go away, but then when I come back there will be no one around to see or care what I do. We can go on dates and not have to worry. Please, Jared, would you wait till I get back before you decide that our relationship won’t work?” I know I must have sounded desperate and pathetic but I didn’t care.  
  
Jared was looking at me worriedly. “Where are you going?”  
  
“The FBI have a medical lab,” It was just a lab, but I didn’t want Jared to worry any more than was necessary or freak out. “They’ve offered to run some tests to make sure that my powers aren’t hurting me and to help me understand them. It will also get the reporters away from my family until something new comes up that they can report on. In return, I’ll find a few bad guys for them and then I’ll come home. It will only be for a week, two tops.”  
  
“Have you lost your mind? Do you know what they’ll do to you?” Jared was not calming down and his grip on my arms tightened. I’d have bruises for sure but I tried not to let him show he was hurting me. If he knew, he might make me get off and then he could walk away from me or change the topic and we needed to finish this.  
  
“Yes, I do. Mr. Browne, that’s our lawyer, helped arrange everything. Plus, I won’t give the final okay to stay at the lab until my dad checks it out. Besides, I’m not under arrest, I’m going voluntarily so I can leave when I want. I won’t be there long, a week, I doubt I’ll be there for two, the world has all kinds of things going on that the reporters will move on to when they can’t get any kind of story.” I could tell my words were having no effect on Jared but I don’t know what else to say. I couldn’t think of any other way to convince him to give us a chance. I was about to kiss him again to take his mind off it but he started talking first.  
  
“I’ve seen Minority Report, Firestarter, and The Fury, the government can turn voluntary into involuntary. All they have to do is claim you know government secrets and they can hold on to you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t since you would have to prove that and it could take forever with the way the system is run on their end.” Jared was serious but I thought it was all conspiracy theory talk.  
  
I was not going to be kidnapped by my own government. At least I didn’t think so. “I don’t know how you think they would claim I could know secrets since I’ll be at a medical lab. I’ll probably be watched night and day. What on earth could I steal from there that would be so important?”  
  
“All they would have to do is say that they left you alone in some office and you went through their things and saw something you weren’t supposed to.” Jared was logical and it did make sense in a twisted sort of way.  
  
“Jared, I don’t think I’m in any danger. Honestly. But if it would make you feel better we can talk more about it if you make out with me. Infact you can even plan strategies with Chris who is sure to buy into your ludicrous conspiracy theories if you promise not to give up on our relationship just yet. I’ll even agree to whatever you two come up with, within reason, if you agree to more dates when I get back.”  
  
I was not above bargaining to get what I wanted. It was like dangling a steak in front of a starving man. Jared’s grip on my arms lessened and I slid forwards again. I would tempt him with more than words.  
  
“Please,” I half whispered as I leaned closer and kissed him, gently this time as if sealing the deal. I didn’t believe Jared was weak willed but he did give in to the kiss. For a few minutes we went on kissing and I slid further into his lap until I was pressing against him pelvis to pelvis, and chest to chest. His hands had found their way up the inside of my shirt and he was caressing my back. I could not reach his back as he was against the chair and our chests were to close together for my hands to fit up there. Instead, I had my hands curled into fists in his hair so I could hold his head still while I kissed him. It was so soft I flexed every few seconds to feel the texture as it slid through my fingers. At last he drew back from me and pushed me back down his lap a bit, but not before I could feel how much he had enjoyed our make-out session. I was equally aroused but I didn’t want to push my luck right now. Also it gave him something to look forward to if he agreed to wait for me.  
  
“When do you leave?” He was a little breathless for a second.  
  
“Day after tomorrow.” I leaned in for another long kiss that had me hoping for more making out but he pushed me back again.  
  
“You drive a hard bargain and I would hate if something happened to you even if we weren’t dating.” How Jared could look so serious after what we’d just done I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “Tell Chris to come by later tonight and we can talk strategy about what to do. Then you can come back tomorrow and we can go over anything we come up with. If you agree to my terms, I’m sure I can agree to yours. Now, if you don’t mind, as much as I enjoy having you where you are, you need to get off me, my legs are asleep.” Jared pushed as I moved back until I was standing up. My own legs were a bit weak and tingly from the way I had been sitting. Jared made no move to get up.  
  
“You’re not going to walk me to the door?” I teased but inside I was hopeful.  
  
“No I can’t get up yet and I don’t want to face my mother right now. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Jared started rubbing the tops of his thighs. I watched his hands for a moment wishing they were my hands giving him relief. Before things could get heated again, I left. Opting to go around the house rather than back through it. It may have been rude but I didn’t want to face Jared’s mother either. Not with half a hard on left.  
  
Reaching the front of the house, I saw Chris waiting in his truck just like he said he would be. It took him a second to notice me since he was watching the front door and not the side of the house. When I got in he started the engine and we were off immediately.  
  
“So, how did it go? I didn’t hear shouting or anything breaking and you don’t look hurt.  You look a little  _too good_ , actually.” Chris took sidelong glances at me as he drove back to my house.  
  
“He took it pretty well, all things considered, but I’m not sure if it really has completely sunk in yet even if he did hear it a few days ago.” I didn’t tell Chris about the secret Jared had told me about himself. “He wants you to go back later and talk to him. He thinks the government is going to try to kidnap me or something. He wants to talk strategy with you about getting me out or some such thing if the need comes up.” At least that was the gist of it from what he’s said.  
  
“Well, at least someone is thinking about your wellbeing logically besides me” Chris drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “I’ll go back after I drop you off and see what he has to say.”  
  
“Thanks,” I said, even though I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t know how much I would need to thank them in the future but hindsight is a funny thing isn’t it.  
  
When I finally got back home it was as if nothing had changed while I was gone. Mom was still spending time with Mac and Josh was in his room. Dad was in his home office space trying to do what he could for the restaurant. I was sad that I had brought such stress on my family and relieved that it would be over soon.  
  
Again, hindsight is a funny thing because the past few days had only been the beginning of our problems.


	5. Chapter 5

I didn’t sleep well that night and in the morning I didn’t look my best. I spent the day making sure that everything I needed was packed and by the door for tomorrow. I did school work that I was missing from being absent from class. I even got ahead on it so I wouldn’t have to take some of it to the lab with me. I figured if I had to stay the full two weeks, Josh could bring me what I wasn’t taking with me for the first week. I had asked Mom to cook something for me to take to Chris’s as I wanted a night with him and Steve before I left the next day. It was only a bit of a lie since I would be spending time with Chris but instead of Steve the other person would be Jared and we would be at his house not Chris’s. It helped her take her mind of the fact that I was leaving temporarily and Mac helped her out so it took Mac’s mind off what was going on outside. By the time school was getting out I was more than ready for Chris to come and get me. I watched the clock as time passed and I got the dinner Mom and Mac had made ready for transport. It would not be easy getting the bags I had through Mr. Bartle’s yard but I did manage. Chris gave me a stare as I awkwardly worked my way into his truck.

“Mom made us dinner,” I said as I buckled myself in and he stepped on the gas. We drove all the way to Jared’s in silence and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. When we got there Chris parked in the driveway and I saw the same car as yesterday and Jared’s bike under the cover. Jared had skipped detention. I don’t know if his mom knew about his detentions or not but she must not have cared.

She opened the door as Chris was knocking. She didn’t have the chain lock on so we came inside immediately. I showed her the bags of food and asked her where I should set them up. There was plenty for everyone and she was welcome to as much as she wanted. She had Jared set the table and insisted we all eat together. This put a damper on us getting down to plans but it was an enjoyable meal. Jared’s mom’s name was Sherri and she asked us all about school, our home lives and what we were going to do over the summer. We offered to do the dishes for her but she insisted that since Chris and I had brought the meal and we were there to see Jared she would do them. We went outside to talk so we wouldn’t upset Jared’s mom if she overheard us.

It seemed Chris and Jared had been busy the night before. I was to check in everyday with Chris and should anything happen there was code words to signal if I was in distress and in need of rescue. The rescue was kept a secret between Chris and Jared just in case. In case of what, I had no idea and didn’t really care to think about. They had managed to scrape up some emergency cash. It was no use asking them where they got it, they wouldn’t say. Jared had also bought two burner phones, one for me and one for himself in case I needed to communicate privately or my lines of communication were cut off. These items would be hidden in a guitar that Chris had spent the night modifying in case I and my luggage was searched. The guitar could be looked at and the hidden compartment not found unless it was being put under serious scrutiny which they didn’t think was likely to happen. If anything the guitar case was to be inspected in more detail than the actual instrument.

When we came back inside Sherri told us that she was going out to see a friend for a bit and wished us all goodnight. After she left Chris said that he had some errands to run for his dad and he’d come back for me later. I have no idea how much Jared’s mother knew but with her gone, Chris was giving me time alone with Jared. I didn’t mind at all. (You shouldn’t either it’s the 21st century and if you do feel free to skip over the next few pages).

Once Chris was gone Jared took me into his room. It was tiny, just big enough for his bed, a queen which was big enough for him if he laid on it diagonally and a night stand with a lamp. There was a tiny closet space where he managed to fit all his clothes and various things for school. We lay side by side on the bed and made out, kissing and nipping at throats while our hands roamed. I finally got to touch his skin and was startled by what I found. I tried not to show my surprise and shock when my fingers found the scars on his back. He had frozen as soon as I touched them and I could tell he wanted to say something but I stopped him with a kiss and kept moving my fingers. I traced the scars at first then just ran my hands over his back in random patterns.

He had three scars on his front, one where his appendix was, I knew this scar because Josh had one also, only Jared’s was longer and wider. There was another one on his right side over his ribs and one very close to where his heart was. I had an idea of where he had gotten them and it made me disregard his crime even more. After what felt like forever of feeling each other up, Jared pulled my shirt off. He went right to work nibbling my collar bone as his nails scratched down my chest. It was good and I moaned wiggling a bit. He chuckled and came back up to kiss me some more.

When he ran his fingers over my nipples I gasped and he stuck his tongue in my mouth. It was awkward for a second I don’t mind saying because I had never done that before but I got the hang of it fairly quickly. I began tugging at his shirt and he resisted but I persisted and finally it came off. I saw the scars I had felt on his front and it made me a little misty eyed. I kissed to one close to his heart as I caressed the one over his ribs. When I backed off I also saw the reason he wore long sleeves or multiple layers. There were round burn scars on his arms. He went to cover up but I reached out and pulled him over to me. I rolled as I pulled and he was sprawled half on top of me. I kissed him again and rubbed my hands down his arms. He was stiff for a second then got back with the program. I accepted him wordlessly and he thanked me with affection. He traced his fingers over my ribs getting a laugh out of me for my ticklish spots. He caressed my arms as I had his and ran his fingers through my hair. By now he was fully on top of me and the weight of him felt good. I could feel all of him and he could feel me and it didn’t take our bodies long to start doing what comes naturally to all aroused animals. We began thrusting against each other to gain friction, to get relief and pleasure. We were panting by now, our kisses sporadic as we focused on a more important part of our anatomy.

I wasn’t ready to have sex yet, I didn’t know how much would show on any physical I would get later at the lab, but I knew that I wanted Jared to be the first person I slept with. When I got back and we resumed dating I could bring it up, but not now. Now was small pleasures and getting familiar with each other’s bodies.

I have no idea how he got his hand in there without me noticing but suddenly Jared’s hands were in my pants covering my cock through my underwear. I gave a little cry as he ran his fingers along it and thrust his own cock against the crevice of my pelvic bone. I wanted to touch him to but I couldn’t get my hands around his or into the tight space he was rubbing. I settled instead for running my thumbs over his nipples. He jerked at the first touch pushing hard into me and flattening his hand harder against my cock. The sensation was amazing and a second later he had the waistband of my underwear down and his fingers firmly around my cock. I didn’t know how much more I was going to take. Touching yourself is one thing but having someone else do it is another. Add to that the other sensations of a body on yours, skin on skin and demanding kisses and I was not going to last nor did I want to. Being a teenager the recovery time is high and if we played our cards right we could hopefully go again before Chris got back. He used my pre-come to help smooth the way but it was still a bit rough without lube. At that point though, I was to gone by then to care if I was getting a little chaffed. I bucked into his hand as much as I could and he increased his stroking and thrusting. We kissed once more roughly and my hands scrabbled at his arms as I began to lose control. It was over moments later when I jerked and stiffened as I came. A few thrusts more and so did Jared. We lay tangled and panting trying to calm down and yet enjoy your bliss at the same time. Jared rolled off me but not away and we both breathed easier.

After a minute or two Jared rolled over to kiss me then rolled away and got up. He opened the single drawer of his night stand and took out some tissues which he handed me. I took them and reached inside my underwear to clean myself up. Jared was doing the same and he pulled a tiny trash can from the opposite side of the night stand for us to dispose of the evidence.

Jared handed me my shirt and put his back on signaling the end of any further exploring. When we were respectable again he opened his window a crack and led me back out to the living room. We sat on the couch lazily making out lightly again between snippets of my emergency plans again. Before half an hour was up Chris was back. I gathered up the containers from dinner and left. Chris and I went over the plans again on the way back to my house. I had them down pat and nothing short of amnesia was going to make me forget them. At home I placed the guitar by my bags and saying goodnight to my family, went to bed. I dreamed of Jared and the mutual orgasms we had and fantasized a bit more. I woke up a bit wet in the morning and not feeling so glum about going to the lab.

Agents Heyerdahl and Carroll arrived with an escort mid-morning to take Dad and me to the lab. The reporters tried to follow us and some of them made it all the way to the base when they were stopped by security.

So part of my goal was already complete with the reporters following us. It wouldn’t be long before word spread of where I was and hopefully the reporters would come here and stay away from my house. I would be news for at least another day or two but with nothing coming out of the lab or base they would have to move on. I mean, really, how interesting could I be doing nothing?

Quite interesting, as it turned out, as speculation flew and I didn’t really sit around and do nothing. I did something to make the news grow.

The base wasn’t much to look at as we passed through it, going directly to the lab where I would presumably spend most of my time. Fist was a section of one story, squat, concrete buildings that were identified as the mess hall, two lecture halls for classes and instruction, a gym, officers building, where the orders came from not a club house, the laundry, uniforms and assorted military linens only, and a commissary closest to the next section which was housing.

The housing was laid out like any close to the city, inner suburbs with rows of identical houses on parallel streets that connected by three intersecting main avenues at both ends and the middle. Later, I learned that the firing range, a running track and mechanics garage with fleet vehicles was on the far side of the base away from the entrance and the housing to reduce danger and noise. In the middle of the housing area was a small park and pool for any kids on base. I would be free to go if I had the time or the inclination.

Last was an onsite hospital where medics trained and practiced. This was connected to the lab I would be at via a covered walkway. However, only a limited number of people had access to the lab as opposed to the more common access to the hospital. This was made clear by guards at the door to the lab and bars on its windows. The hospital and lab were both two stories and the bars extended to the second story on the lab. There was a helicopter pad off to the side of the buildings. The pad was empty at the moment and I wondered if it was out on a medical mission or if they just used it for emergencies and it was kept elsewhere. It seemed inconvenient if the latter were true but, then again, I didn’t wish anyone was hurt for the helicopter to be in use.

  
When we stopped in front of the hospital and got out, a female doctor in a typical white lab coat came out to greet us. She must have been waiting and she seemed very pleasant as she smiled and introduced herself as Dr. Ferris. While we were being greeted, the car with all my stuff drove off; probably everything I brought was going to be inspected but when Dad started to protest, Agent Carroll said that everything was going to be taken to where I was staying.

With that taken care of, Dr. Ferris took them on a tour of the lab and the testing rooms. Most of it looked like any other hospital, and I’d know from my recent stay in one. They had an imaging chamber where I’d get a full body cat scan as well as a series of brain images as I looked at photos of missing people and if I could fall asleep while in here, while I dreamed. There was an exam room with a comfortable but narrow looking bed with a cart and table full of wires and machines next to it. This was what patients wore and slept with when participating in sleep studies. Dr. Ferris hoped that I could spend at least one night here, hopefully two, to be monitored round the clock to see how my brain functioned. There was an ordinary looking exam room where I’d get a complete checkup. An office that had a couch and a few chairs and bookshelves filled to capacity that belonged to the resident psychologist, Dr. Sheppard. He was currently busy at the moment but was looking forward to seeing me. There was also a room that looked a lot like a classroom with small desks and chairs facing a white board with a drop down projector screen above it. This is where I would study the faces of the missing people they wanted found.

  
That done we were taken to the room I would be staying in. It was right off the lab building to the back and when we got inside it was obvious it had been an office even with new furniture. There was a small room first that might have belonged to a secretary and doubled as a waiting room. Now it was a living room of sorts with a couch that looked like it came from a doctor’s waiting room and there were two matching chairs. There was a small tv on top of a bookcase that was almost completely empty. On a lower shelf of the bookcase was a radio along with a phone, the old kind with the cord. Against a wall was a camp table with a folding chair where I could work and eat. The bedroom was bigger, but not by much from the outer room. It had a queen sized bed that was made expertly. The old phrase that you could bounce a quarter off it come to mind and made me smile for a second. There was a night stand and lamp and a three drawer narrow dresser and that was it, aside from my belongings in the corner. A small bath was included with a tiny sink and mirror wedged next to a toilet and a narrow shower I would just fit into. This must have been some important lab supervisor or managers office to have a bathroom at all and I wondered where they would be working while I occupied the space.

I was told that I could eat in the mess when it was open or opt to have meals brought to me here. When at the lab I would be provided with food. I was to have an allowance of twenty dollars a week to use at the commissary for items I needed if I ran out of toothpaste or deodorant or materials for my school work, like paper. There was a curfew but that was for everyone on base so I would have to obey that rule like everyone else. Like I was going to roam around late at night looking at and doing nothing since there was nothing of interest here.

Everything seemed to be in order and above board as far as what was agreed to, so Dad was ready to leave. We said a quick goodbye and he reminded me to behave and agents Heyerdahl and Carroll took him back home. Since it was so late in the day for much of anything Dr. Ferris took me back to the lab to meet the scientists and doctors who would be working with her and testing me. I honestly don’t remember all their names so I can’t put them here in my statement, sorry. There must be some kind of record with the government though, so maybe if you’re that interested you can get it from them. That is, if it isn’t marked top secret. I did, however, learn that the office turned apartment I was living in belonged to Dr. Sheppard and I didn’t mind at all that I had kicked him out. That’s because I found him to be annoying and mean-spirited. He followed Dr. Ferris, who I thought wasn’t very fond of him either, and me around the whole time we were in the lab asking questions. They were annoying or I didn’t have the answers to or too personal for my tastes and making snide comments about any answer I gave. I wasn’t looking forward to spending time with him or my upcoming psych eval. At all. After that, I just wandered around the base, the civilian side, until it was time for dinner.

I wasn’t up for company so I took my meal of meatloaf, mixed vegetable and mac and cheese in my room. For dessert it came with a brownie that didn’t look all that appetizing but tasted pretty good. I slept fitfully, being in a place I didn’t know and wasn’t too happy to be in but was necessary.

I woke up grumpy, way to early by sounds of I don’t know what they were doing, but a lot of men were doing it. Since I couldn’t get back to sleep I showered and went to find food. The mess hall was almost empty, the soldiers doing drills or whatever they did. I had my choice of oatmeal, pancakes, toast, eggs, bacon, biscuits with gravy and mixed fruits. Everything was mass produced and tasted a bit bland but it was filling. I sat alone and ate slowly before going for a quick walk and then back to my room to wait for my day to really begin.

Dr. Ferris, herself, came to get me at nine o’clock and I was grateful because there was nothing on TV that early but news and kids shows. There may have been more on but my TV only got a few limited channels. I wasn’t in the mood for whatever the kids’ shows wanted to teach and I was on the news shows, or at least the local news. They were speculation if I was at the military/government base by choice, if I was being taken seriously or if I was being tested for fraud and would I be their new secret weapon. I didn’t want to hear any of it so I had checked out the few books left behind not wanting to bother with the radio yet. It turned out that got a limited amount of stations too, although I couldn’t figure out how it was managed. There was the news networks, the bases own radio station, two country stations, a gospel station, a rock station, a top 40 or pop station and an oldies station.

First up for the day was the complete physical, and I mean complete, where I was put through just about every test known to man. Since I had to endure these indignities, so do you, it only seems fair since you’re asking me to go through them again, at least in memory. I had my eyes, ears, a hearing test included, nose, and reflexes tested. They listened to my lungs and heart, checked my blood pressure and took blood, lots of it, for further testing. Probably for every drug, disease, pathogen or defect imaginable, they had so much of it. They checked out my teeth and throat, they even gave me a short taste test of sorts, flexibility, dexterity, and looked for any odd features, the best one was if I could roll my tongue, which by the way, I can’t. They mapped out all my scars and asked about how I got them. Then came the x-rays and scans which took up a huge portion of time so that I had a very late lunch. Last was an oral history of my health of everything I could remember and anything my family genetics might have passed to me. I was so done by the time they were but I still had the psychological tests that would last until the end of the day.

Some of the psych stuff wasn’t so bad, I got to play puzzle, memory and logic games as well as do that ink blot whatever it is and word association. They took down any history of mental disease and issues my family had and then it was on to see Dr. Sheppard. That was the unpleasant part if you didn’t guess. I was asked about my life from as far back as I could remember. How did I feel about my family situation or in general, working for my family, being the middle sibling, the non-involvement and feud with extended family, my friendship with my limited amount of friends. What did I think about school and the general state of things in the state? Then it got super personal and uncomfortable since I was pretty sure Dr. Sheppard was judging me when he asked how I felt about myself, my body image, my intelligence, and my sexuality. He even asked if I had a sexual partner and how I felt about them. I declined to answer more and more of his recent questions and he started to get angry and tried to get a rise out of me or to have me answer his questions by making snide and belittling remarks. When we got to the sex part I was so done I got up and left the room. Dr. Sheppard followed me still asking questions and making comments when Dr. Ferris came to my rescue. She must have been waiting close by and I was grateful even if it meant she wanted to poke and prod me some more. Anything to get away from Dr. Sheppard at this point. They got into an argument about me to and acted like I wasn’t even there but I let it slide since Dr. Ferris won. I was excused for the day which didn’t make Dr. Sheppard happy and he vowed that he’d see me later. I was ready for the next round of tests but Dr. Ferris surprised me by letting me go for the day. As I went she reminded me to do my homework.

I had been still for so long of the day I decided that a run around the base wouldn’t be a bad thing. It turns out there where a few places I was not allowed to go so my jogging path was all over the place. I finished and went to have a quick shower before dinner. The mess hall was very busy when I arrived and I nixed the plan to eat there when I got a few more looks with whispered comments from the soldiers than I liked.

Dinner was fried chicken with or without gravy, biscuits, mash potatoes, more mixed veggies, more fruit and pudding for dessert. I got two helpings of that. After I went to the commissary and had ten minutes before they closed to look around. I used some of the spending money they gave me to buy the newest and last book by Tom Clancy. I wasn’t sure if that was covered under necessities but the clerk, a teenager about my age, didn’t stop me. With my book I went back to hide out in my room. I was itching to call home and Chris to see how the situations with the reporters was, too, so I put the book aside for after my check-ins.

I called home first and Dad answered with the usual generic greeting of “Ackles residence.” I’m not sure who else does this in today’s day and age but at least you know who you have reached.  
“Hi, Dad, it’s me. How is everyone?” I was sure it would be rude to ask if the reporters were gone first even if that was what I most wanted to know. I was sure my family was fine, if they weren’t I am 100% positive that Mom, my first pick, and Dad would have found a way to get hold of me here.

“Jensen! It’s good to hear from you, everyone is fine. Things have calmed down a bit, since you left. Most of the reporters have too. There are still a few hanging around but nowhere near as many as before. Mac went back to school today and everything was fine. She’s still a little nervous though, so Donna is going to take her to the movies tomorrow.

I had forgotten that it was Friday already. Dad and Josh would be busy at the restaurant and Mom would normally have been there, too, but I understood why she would take the day off to be with Mac. It would be busy though with reporters still about and…

“What about those church people and the protesters?”

It was quiet for a moment and then Dad sighed. “They’re still here for the most part. I’m not sure how long those church people are going to stay but I’d guess at least till Monday. They plan to visit our church on Sunday. As for the protesters, who knows? I have a feeling they’ll leave mainly when the reporters do over the weekend but a few hard core ones might hang on till the church people leave.”

I was glad that things had calmed down so much but I had hoped that the church people and protesters would leave when they knew I was no longer at home. However, the fact the church people would stay until Sunday service even if it wasn’t their own church did make a bit of sense depending on how far they came. I was ready to hang up and call Chris but Dad passed the phone to Mom.

“Jensen, how are you? Are they treating you okay? Are you okay medically? Are you getting enough to eat?” Mom ran out of breath and before she could start again, Dad’s voice could be heard in the background telling her to calm down and let me answer before she asked more questions. “Jensen?” She didn’t apologize and with that single question was asking all the previous ones again.

I looked up at the ceiling as I answered sure she’d be able to tell even without seeing me if I rolled my eyes at her. A mothers concern is nothing to laugh at she always told us when he got annoyed or frustrated with her fussing over us. “I’m fine, everything here is good the doctors and staff have been nice. Nothing is wrong with me other than what I had before the lightning.” I didn’t actually know that because all the test results weren’t back in yet and they hadn’t told me anything about the extended tests yet either, but Mom didn’t need to know that. “The food is filling but it’s nothing like yours and don’t worry, I’m studying.” I preemptively answer the next question she was going to ask. I know this because she always asks.

“Well, okay.” She didn’t sound too okay but there really wasn’t anything she could do. “I hope the reporters are gone by the end of the weekend and you can come home. I’ll cook your favorite for dinner and dessert, alright?” the last bit was a reassurance.

“Sure, look I have to go and finish my homework. A lie since I had done todays before I came. I just wanted to check-in. I’ll call again later.” I wanted to call Chris before he went off to practice his music. On Friday he and Steve worked on their music after dinner if their chores were done.

“Goodnight, Jensen.” Mom said and in the background everyone else said goodnight too. They must have been having dinner or more likely desert.

“Goodnight.” I hung up the phone. For a second I felt a twinge of home sickness but I dialed Chris’s number so I wouldn’t have time to dwell on it. It rang so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer but he did before it flipped over to voicemail.

“Hello, Pizza Hut Pizza,” Chris’s voice came across the line and he sounded absolutely serious.

“Chris, what are you doing?” I didn’t bother to identify myself he’d know from my voice.

“Keeping nosy reporters from calling me or at least calling back. I didn’t recognize the number so who knows who it could have been.” That was Chris being smart again, I wouldn’t have thought of that.

“What happens if whoever calls tries to order a pizza?” I tried to think of the answer to that, and hope Chris has one to compare it to.

“I take their order and credit info and then call the real pizza place. I, of course, make sure they get a nice tip.” I can hear the amusement in his voice and I smile, too. His answer is not the same as my own because I couldn’t really think of one. “So how is it at club fed?” His voice is serious again and I know he’s all business.

If the line is being tapped, which I’m positive it is, I don’t care for this call. “It’s okay, I have my own mini studio apartment, the foods decent in that I won’t starve and short of actual dissection in an imitation alien probe, I’ve been examined at almost microscopic levels. The doctors are pretty nice except for their psychologist, he’s a jackass.”

Chris laughed and I knew that he must be relaxing from my positive report. I hadn’t used a single code word so he knew I was okay. “You doing any work for them yet finding people? How you found anyone yet?”

“No, it’s just been medical stuff so far, but even if I had started looking for people I can’t talk details about it. That’s a no-no I agreed to.” We had guessed this before I left but I had to say it out loud to look good for the likely phone tap. It wasn’t like I couldn’t talk about it later. I had agreed not to but who was going to know if I spilled the beans to my friend. Reality check please!

“Fine,” Chris sounded a bit put out but that was an act, again for the phone tap. “You think you’ll make it back for our gig?” Here Chris was setting up the situation I would need to make my code words not sound like code words if I need to use them.

“We’ll see,” this answered that question and the speculation of whether or not I would need to use my code words. So far nothing sinister was going on and I felt as comfortable as I could having my powers tested while being watched almost 24/7. I didn’t want to think that they had surveillance in my rooms, a bug, sure, but cameras? I sure hoped not.

“Well, try okay?” Chris admonished. “I gotta go and practice. Don’t forget to do the same. Can’t have you sucking at the gig.” Chris didn’t wait for a reply and he hung up but that was nothing new.

Calls done, no homework, dinner and desert digesting, I settled in with my book. It was okay but nothing special. I hadn’t read his work before but I had seen some of the movies based on his stuff and I didn’t get far before I turned my attention to the TV. I caught the tail end of some nature show about grizzly bears, which I don’t have to worry about living in Texas, and saw a little news. A very small focus on me for a change before it was time to call it a night. It was early by teenager and Friday night standards but it had been a long and stressful day. I had no idea what tomorrow would bring but hoped it would be more exciting.

I was woken up on Saturday way to early again, much too early for a Saturday period, with the noises of to many men doing I knew not what. I wondered if there was someone or somewhere I could complain to. I got up and repeated the routine of the morning before but with a little reading as a bonus before Dr. Ferris picked me up. She asked me about my night and I told her it was fine and that was all the amount of small talk we had. I was taken to the classroom which had been rearranged. There was not a single desk and chair set in the middle of the room, the others were gone or against the walls. The projector screen was down and the projector lit and ready to go. Close to the desk and chair was a single chair and a cart full of equipment. A computer monitor, printer like machine, keyboard and a ton of wires with tiny pads on the ends.

While I sat at the desk and Dr. Ferris and a nurse set about hooking me up to the machine, Agent Heyerdahl came in with another man who was in military uniform. They talked in hushed tones so I couldn’t make out the words but it didn’t matter because as soon as Dr. Ferris and the nurse were done, the military man approached. He looked me over trapped as I was in my seat and I looked him over to show I wasn’t cowed, even if he was a little intimidating, truthfully.

“Mr. Ackles, I’m Coronel Pellegrino and I’ll be overseeing you’re testing. I have brought slides of some very bad people we are looking for. There are pictures of hostages too that we are aiming to recover. The pictures are mostly of adults but there are a few teenagers and children mixed in. Now we know that you can absolutely find children but your accurate finding of Carlos Ramirez makes us hope that you can find anyone you see. If you can’t locate any of the adults, we will do our best to find pictures of these subjects as children and try again.” Once he was finished with his speech he went back over to the projector and fiddle around with it before talking to Agent Heyerdahl again. Then he left without a backwards glance.

Agent Heyerdahl was obviously in charge of this part of the show even with Dr. Ferris present in the chair next to my monitoring equipment.

“Let’s begin.” Agent Heyerdahl turned down the lights and started the slide show.

At first the slides went to fast and I told him so. I may hate the guy but I was here to do a job and he adjusted the slides. It took a bit of experimenting to get the speed right and I was sure that Agent Heyerdahl was very annoyed with me by the time he got it right. It turned out it took between 35 and 45 seconds for me to focus enough for my powers to latch on or whatever happened to make me dream up their location. The pictures were pretty standard and modified to have as little or bland background as possible with the majority being middle aged white men.

I would have thought with today’s nonstop news streams about terrorist there would be more people of middle eastern origin. I know, I know, I’m stereotyping, but in general they are the instigators and yes, they can be from anywhere in the world. They’re recruited based on beliefs, grievances and prejudices and anyone can be a terrorist, but the media just loves to paint them as the biggest group thanks to 9/11. Pellegrino was right in that there were only a handful of kids and teenagers but I didn’t think it would matter since I was doing that focus thing on everyone.

After a while things got boring and I had to pee, not to mention I was getting hungry. I began to fidget and not pay that much attention to the slides. I had to have been looking at them for as long as a feature length film by now. If not, it sure felt like it and I was ready to get up and move. Dr. Ferris must have noticed my interest fading first since she was monitoring me but she didn’t say anything. When I started to move around in my seat at every other slide Agent Heyerdahl had enough. He paused the slides and turned on the lights.

“Are we boring you?” It was said sarcastically and he was not quite sneering at me.

“Yes,” I told him the truth and watched him get angry. “I’ve been here for a while looking at very similar pictures without any other kind of stimulation. My eyes hurt, my legs tingle, I need to pee and I’m getting hungry. I’m not a machine you can just feed images to all day.” I wanted to make a statement by slouching or getting up to give a big stretch but I was stuck in my seated position by all the wires.

“It is about time for a break,” Dr. Ferris stepped in before Agent Heyerdahl could rebuke me. She got up and came over to start unhooking me and that was that. Agent Heyerdahl grumbled something I couldn’t make out and shut off the projector before unplugging it and taking it with him when he left. When Dr. Ferris had finished unplugging me she gathered up her own materials. “Go ahead and get some lunch while I go over these and I’ll pick you up from your room in two hours.” It wasn’t up for discussion and I didn’t stick around to bargain I left to find a bathroom.

Lunch was like a Subway with build your own sandwich options and healthy sides. Even more soldiers looked at me than the day before and I was resigned to eating my lunch alone for my stay. It was nice out, so after scarfing down my meal I went out and walked until it was time to go and be collected for more testing. Getting hooked up the second time was slightly faster than in the morning since Dr. Ferris and the nurse knew exactly where to put everything now.

Agent Heyerdahl had hooked up the projector by the time I was ready and turned down the lights as soon as Dr. Ferris took her seat. I spent another film length of time looking at the slides. I don’t know if my interrupting the testing caused it to restart or if there were only a limited number of pictures or what but the slides were the same as before except at the end, when there were a few I hadn’t seen. I had to pay attention because I had drifted off when I realized I wasn’t focusing on the photos as I had the first time. I wondered if it was because I had them locked in my brain or I just didn’t care. Either way I spaced for most of the time which I used to think about Jared and what we might do together when I got back home. Later I would wonder what the results from the monitor looked like. I bet Dr. Ferris and her associates had a field day with it and trying to theorize the difference. If there even was one, I was never shown the results so I wouldn’t know I could only guess. But I would think that brain patterns or waves or whatever would be different from looking at plain boring photos to thinking about sex, or at least jerking off together.

When I was finally let go this time, it wasn’t meal time coming up. Dr. Ferris suggested that I go to the tiny park or the pool since it was still hot outside. I opted for the pool but told her I didn’t have any swimming trunks. She told me to buy some at the commissary and wrote a note that would allow me to charge them to her account. Half an hour later I was floating in the deeper section of the pool trying to stay out of reach of the little kids splashing. When I was done soaking I found an empty lounge chair and laid out. I have pretty pale skin for a Texan so I had applied plenty of sun block for which I was grateful since the sun and the dull day staring at photos made me drowsy and I fell asleep. I must have been having a nightmare or something because the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake by Dr. Ferris who had a concerned look on her face.

“Are you okay Jensen? Did you see anyone?” She crouched next to me her hand still on my shoulder which was very warm and tingled a bit.

I was a little fuzzy headed and it took me a moment to figure out the meaning behind Dr. Ferris’s question. “No I don’t know where anyone is, I, I think I was having a nightmare but I can’t remember. I’m okay now.” I sat up making her hand fall off me.

“Alright” Dr. Ferris didn’t sound to convinced and stood back up. “You got some sunburn going on, I have some aloe Vera if you need it.”

I looked down to see that I had turned a light shade of pale pink and sighed. “It’s okay. It’ll be a tan in a day or two.” Which was true but I would itch like crazy tonight as the burn turned into the tan. I noticed that the sun was sinking, too, so it must have been getting late in the evening. “What time is it? Did I miss dinner?” If I missed the food from the mess I could get something from the commissary but it wouldn’t be warm because I had nothing to cook or heat food up with.

“You’ll make it if you change quickly,” Dr. Ferris said. “When I didn’t see you come in to eat I came looking for you.”

I knew that I was being watched but I didn’t think that anyone would admit to it outside of the lab when it was acceptable. Of course, Dr. Ferris could have been eating in the mess hall and noticed me before but I doubt it.

“Thanks” I said and started to walk towards my rooms. Dr. Ferris followed me and told me again that if I needed help with my sunburn all I had to do was find her or page her using the operator if I pressed zero on my phone. She left me after that and when I got to my rooms I threw on my pants and shirt before jogging to the mess hall. Dinner tonight was grilled chicken and rice, salad and steamed veggies, Texas toast, which I thought was odd with the chicken but I took anyway, and cake squares. I took chocolate.

Back at my rooms I ate first so the food wouldn’t get cold then took a shower. Thank God I got dressed in the tiny bathroom because when I came out Coronel Pellegrino was waiting for me. I bit my tongue to keep from cursing because I think he’d like it if I showed just how startled I was to see him. I had flinched a bit, so it wasn’t like he didn’t get some reaction, damn it, but I wasn’t going to give him anything else. I had my pride.

I would also remember to lock the door from now on.

“I hear that you had a nap after viewing our missing person’s presentation.” It was a fact not a question so I didn’t answer. “Do you have anything to share, any interesting dreams?” This was a question and I decided to answer so he would leave, he creeped me out.

“I didn’t dream about any of those men.” The only men or rather man I wanted to dream about was Jared. As far as I knew, if I dreamed about the missing kids I didn’t remember that part.

“I guess Dr. Ferris’s theory is correct that you need REM sleep for your powers to work.” I had no idea what exactly REM sleep was but he didn’t sound happy about this fact. “I’ll see you in the morning and I hope you have some results. If you need a refresher before bed I have provided the photos for you in print.” He waved his hand to the table and I saw a thick envelope on it. With that, he turned on his heel and left while I just stood there, dread filling me.

I had no idea what would happen if I didn’t know where any of his missing people where. There was nothing in anything I agreed to saying that I had to find anyone, just that I tried. I wondered if I didn’t produce any addresses if they would kick me out and send me home. They couldn’t get any money from me or my family for expenses, that was agreed on, thank God, because if this was a failure it would be an expensive one. After a minute, when I could move again I went over to the door and locked it. It was their base and they probably had a key but it still made me feel better.

I was to agitated to read or look at the photos Pellegrino had brought which I slipped into my book to mark my place instead of folding the corner of the pages as I had been doing up till now. I didn’t have homework and I didn’t feel like music so TV it was until I could calm down enough to try and sleep. This being the second complete day I was here and the fourth out of the public eye I was curious to see what the news said about me. I had to wait until the local news came on and then I had to wait for the human interest part. This I was pleased with. What I wasn’t pleased with was the fact that it wasn’t something I wanted or expected to see.

Riley Van Galt the first kid I ever found was missing again. He had disappeared from the foster home he had been staying at until he could be reunited with his father.  
After I listened to the few details that the news had on Riley and they moved on to me I turned the TV off. I got up and paced the room thinking about what could have happened to Riley. Did the police not catch his kidnapper? Was there more than one and this second person came back to…Well, I had no idea what this other kidnapper would do to Riley. He was just a kid and he must be scared wherever he was. I refused to believe he was dead. To be kidnapped, rescued and then kidnapped again. It was terrible to think about. I wanted to help him but I didn’t know how other than to find him and I wasn’t sure if I could find someone twice. Also, I didn’t have a picture of him and I hadn’t done my focus thing with the one the news anchor showed on TV, it hadn’t been up that long either. I came up with only one idea and I hoped it would work. Riley needed me and he was just a kid, those other missing people could wait one more day. I went to bed and thought about Riley, about what I could remember from the missing poster I had seen what felt like ages ago now and what I had glimpsed on the news which must have been a color photo of the one from the missing poster. I finally fell asleep thinking about what color his hair and eyes were.


End file.
